A Word on Words; 4029; Kathy Cloninger

and now from nashville public television's do a celebrated authors literature and ideas for more than three decades and this is a word on workers with jobs ms bell i'm dancing in the law once again welcome to word on words my guest today is kathy atlanta she recognized leader in the nonprofit sector is an expert on girls' and women's issues he most recently the chief executive officer of the girl scouts of the usa she's been credited with revitalize commitment to the organization's mission of developing girls leadership capabilities from both tough cookies it chronicles the rise of girl scouts and dresses with kathy seizes this nation's most underused resource girls and the women they all got a welcome port on words thank you can work with a real surprise for me i mean talkative real surprise i think well they go strolling down marilyn the voter roles in both those

smocks of go around though those of produce some of chocolate mints right then you open like where i thought we were going to go with chocolate mints and follow larry klein you say you are the girl scouts only a shock treatments and that's how the girl scouts is all about you know and yet in there we've been fighting this image of you know cute girl selling cookies for decades now and it is sort of what got me in a wild up and said you're the pup needs to know much more about what girl scouting really is in the significant contribution that relate to this nation's leadership and someone to certain bust through the cookies in order to get to the heart and then the more serious a five leaders was with a judgment because because us away so many people think about the girl stars that and then you'd talk about how the girl scouts

now has evolved and two there's some national movement to really train young women for careers in leadership and done we used to use the word revitalize commitment where that it about revitalization come from him and you let it down woodley lead on several things one at the dress gets is turning a hundred in march of two thousand twelve so we're just about to cross over that hundred year mark and i think in any organization especially an icon like the girl scouts really has to stop and say you know so what is it that we are truly about as we embark on the second century and i was fascinated with the work of julia gordon low who founded girl scouts in nineteen twelve before women had the right to vote i didn't know you wrote the book the routes were in

the air very quickly though the roots of girl scouts of the usa and juliet was in london new york maine powell i'm linda de that's right the founder boy scouts quickly realize when six thousand girls out certain went undercover in use their initials to sign up for boy scouts and she knew that that that the scouting movement had something for girls but she also understood girls in the fact that at that time before women have the right to vote and girls were sort of shoved aside physical activity was almost taboo in those days so peculiar wanted to put girls from and center in america and she came back and found a girl scouts of the usa which has now become it then it you know just completely has overtaken the girl scout movement across the world affairs at you but in baltimore definitely above a certain

things are true and to talk about oprah's much more in the book from a working class family and we didn't do a lot of their faith the summer camps are big vacation so gross getting really was a recreation that was accessible to make him a mother worked at the home she was a secretary and she wanted something to sears and you know that was something that our family could do but i was not sort of the quintessential perfect girl scout in and gung ho on the reno earn a reward actually was a lady was actually i was a you know an average risk and it meant a lot to me but my i stumbled into the career by answering a blind they had in his lazy yeah that's fallen in and spent ten years here in nashville and eighteen counties seventeen eighteen thousand gross will parliament and leaders

of the aisle you worked out an arrangement with the recovery international which was talk about this fomenting states quite so well well i was a writer and i was a member of the downtown rotary club and of course we do a lot of civic programs but with a rotary had not been involved in anything that worked with girls particularly so is the head girl scouts i thought you know we need to start something between a rotary in girl scouts out we search the public housing community right outside of downtown nashville and the girls in that community very much wanting to sell cookies and yet didn't have as much volunteer support so we did a programmer material speaking the business coaches to girls who were learning how to sell cookies and yet girl scouting provided all the training to libertarians when and using our girl scout training materials and became the coaches fired for girls and they came out of that with their wide eyes wide open saying i have never seen such

sophisticated sales training we never really understood the depth of these girls are actually running a business this is not like pretend this is girls who were setting goals learning their pride and investing their money team work at its absolute best and they're making money so they're really getting their first start at both entrepreneurship and why can't handle money and there was nothing that the rich parents would sing like than any other educational program they learn learning among other things i don't rotate every one of the jungle senate but mentoring now to talk about it we're learning experience they receive funding exposed to innovative

changes there with a golden girl scouts first with one john first came open why did you not apply the national ceo there was the big question in my family and i was i had been the ceo got here in middle tennessee about ten years and i've moved around a lot before that but nashville felt like home to me my husband was a songwriter you know loved playing the bluebird cafe and we hosted songwriter nights in our house on week after week hundreds of people would come in i was very involved in the community leadership nashville i love it here and i felt like i was making a huge difference to the girls say check it out we would ballots reviewed lawyers wrote most of the girl scouts had been a rat angela lauria and so i have been around so as an adult i really felt when i got

to nashville that i was home and i even after ten years i felt like i was just sort of hitting my stride i love to work i loved the community i was aboard a lot of my friends and i always ended that's right because all doing music and it was just fabulous so the search committee called unsaid new name keeps coming up and i said oh no you know i had been recommended other women who i knew i am and part of that also felt like we needed someone for girl scouts research had a national reputation had some contacts on the national stage is that that result and in deferring to be a multiplier now because you thought you were really a good idea but i couldn't find anybody they day they searched and searched and certainly to wear oh my gosh without a star over again and then they came back we'll talk about what happened and the new well you know it is part of the hold leadership philosophy and ross

getting women often don't recognize when they're ready for leadership and don't have the support system to encourage them to step out and just get out the comfort zone really try leadership i had a mentor fran says hessel bind carl who is very dear friend of peter drucker i had left grow scouts of the usa i found the trucker foundation and i called francis and i said friends as they continue to call me and what you think i should do and she sent you go get your resume gather and destiny is calling you and you better pay attention and with that little industry of state of encouragement i thought you know maybe there is there something here i need to be paying attention to you know you talk about even today nadal they look back over the last quarter century of my life i can see dramatic changes will women

in society that same time you point out it's less than twenty percent of the ceo's of major corporations or when you point out there the same thing almost identical percentage point in congress and legislature same thing's true has a population but small numbers of women in cabinets lot of the smaller than our elected governor i'll have a girl scouts change this given by what most of us think of those traditional program right now on two levels one is i mean i am deeply troubled about the few women in leadership roles i am deeply troubled that we don't seem to be talking i think in one world girls can play as to sort of get

it out and shake it up with that nixon was about it really assertive are a rock n roll along thinking and women are doing great or more than half of the college population but there are fewer women in congress and were twenty years ago there are fewer government governors are women there are fewer women directors and we're not and all getting close to a gender balance of how we song the nation's problems in its different than just saying we don't have enough women charge it is truly understanding that women and man bring two different kinds of leadership to the table both are absolutely essential when we do any better for was only women leaving are relieved leave it is an indian women leading to candidates cannot get us out of the trouble or an indian our nation and its competitor best so we've got that issue going on girl scouts here we are plodding along for a hundred years eighty percent of the women in leadership roles in this country now

we're girl scouts a hundred percent of our human instruments and so we know something about how to grow up girls who take on leadership roles on example myself but two thirds of tissue isn't enough so girl scouting has a role to take what we know about how you tap that confidence in girls and nurture the feminine ways they lead montana make them into the kind of masculine leadership that they see all around them but to say you know the feminine ways you'd need to make a difference and they do add up to leadership and we're going to encourage you to go for that so i think that may seek a huge difference in terms of one girl scouting can bring that and we've got a role to partner when parents and corporate leaders and volunteers and civic leaders and everybody to really say what can we do as a nation to pay attention to the fact that there aren't women in leadership roles and it's that way because

of the reason it's going to take not only the girl scouts but it's going to take all of us changing that culture so that we embrace the way women lead and that we make a difference and use the talent half of the talent in this country's going to waste when it comes to top leadership though the justinian and pokemon getting longer bout of goodies think of goodies that's so i play on words gross downtrodden upon with cookies and for now they're becoming tougher gives you say under immunization get your new york now if you decide you're gonna go for an unnamed sudden you know we've been waiting for you it was time to apply and so now are you there and some liberal troops that are behind what you just said and to have to confront and let's talk about and for me

it's one of the toughest things i think is the leader of you know a great organization is to serve you know take the blinders often say you know how are we really doing i was very influenced by jim collins he did some pro bono work with us as i became the ceo said he was very helpful to me in certain you know peeling back the layers and saying ok will you know things are not all perfect girl scouts we were beginning to be seen as irrelevant and pick the brain of this we talked about is your those girls you know great selling cookies but the public didn't understand the brand beyond that the country is richly diverse and one girl scouting has always had on honor of diversity we were not changing fast enough to keep up with the changing demographics so huge huge markets of new immigrant girls hispanic growth girls in urban settings that we really were under serving we needed to

speed that up on our own care systems were al qaeda in that we had a no work today we were bureaucratic can read hundred year old organization with layers and layers of volunteers running did the company said speak to us was there resistance to i mean some people might see this change coming into a home you know that witness is a feminist take over but the ruling but the brutal truth i mean there was not the flexibility to keep up with changing times now that was one of the challenges that we're facing this week it on an organization like the girl scouting which is run by volunteers for a consensus based you know people served only if it's not just the ceo's movement is it is you know belongs to the masses of year millions of millions of women involved so in order to make the tough changes we had to get everybody involved

so it wasn't a matter of top down here's what we're going to do it was a matter of going out using social media using internet using tractor it's oozing down town hall meetings and we began to engage as many people as we could and looking at the future of girls' cannon salute pointers going to move from an image quite honestly i'm burdened by the elimination of israel is to wait to a movement that's training young women we were to go on ice my family were politically want to take on a serious challenge of growth getting is about leadership in all of its incarnations on yourself leadership leading companies doing in a position a leadership role that girls do have the top stuff needed to grow up to

be the kind of problem solvers that the country needs and this is not about arts and crafts and you know doing good deeds is a major part of leadership that is not the only component so we definitely said we are serious about this leadership agenda we're going to turn everything upside down with the the handbooks aside we re wrote leadership journeys we outsourced every badge and get a completely new batch portfolio that has a much more intentional leadership agenda to change because their traditional medicine now their badges in a not so traditional are really cutting edge change they really are metal strain of bad has on financial literacy and science technology engineering and math and the things that you know in the old days when you know when we would never have thought of truth or girls don't know in an urn images worthington avenues address areas and even

in the boy scout movement who was not addressing and on and again on the cutting injury then after you never really encourage young girls and their parents and scout leaders to overcome that traditional image that fact and move in a new direction and if the parents in the scout leaders that work and in some ways the integrals are on one track and parents and volunteers on another most of the issues that are very uncomfortable to parents or not iran comparable to girls and we just another major study on our values without children and to you know the children of america are very comfortable with diversity and with sexual preference and having gay friends is fine for most middle school but parents are still like not quite sure how to feel about that so that if we don't address nothing to talk about in the book is

addressing the issue with girls from leading to their sexuality now northern iowa knew her about the girl scout moving my sisters were the girl scouts had the slightest thing to do that i ever heard him with understanding their sexuality we're not comfortable actually always has been imprisoned you think about if you're the largest organization serving girls and you want to be there for girls and their issues there's no way that you can dance too far around sexuality mean girls are sexual beings and as we grow up developmentally without question so i mean my girl scout troop in the early sixties late fifties early sixties we went to my mom and her co leaders to help you know figure out what this whole you know i'm growing up and going through puberty it's all about so while we may not you know girls get something provided as much resource

but girls were certainly asking volunteers to help them with issues of sexuality now we're just tackling at morehead on i'm trying to provide resources helping local councils partner with organizations that can help that we do not take a stand on iran sexuality or any of the myriad of difficult issues related to sexuality thing is is that i think back on it when oregon for worse challenge one and to deal with the issues that education there was great resistance in two it's one thing to always doing sexually in the natural course of thing right or when you stated as a policy we going to do with this to get any feedback a flashback and a kick oh absolutely i think it's one of the highest mountains and you see it everywhere in in the

media now it is a political issue it's a religious issue and yet it's an issue that is core to the process of girls growing in developing so it's always been a very challenging a piece of the work of cross captain actually felt proud of the way that we've handled it on one level on the program's of human sexuality have always been in partnership with girls and their families so there are tailored to the particular group of girls a particular community and they're done in lockstep with families and communities of faith so that there's a huge huge flexibility in the way girl scouting approaches any kind of program of human sexuality and i think that's been the core of strength for girls getting so that we can stay were sponsored the girls' names but also on her family perspective and religious beliefs or you spoke a few months ago about about making the movement

bump compatible with the evolution call to action in the society and spoke of his mentor and how he but you know to me it's inevitable that you're now going to be attracting more than letting us that muslim groups have us how those at a movement addressing issues that have in the past been alien maybe they haven't an alien but outside of doing the movement it seems like in almost every step you've taken over the last decade has been one that was like amanda brigade you know someone really good show and we definitely

decided as we've been on that journey in the last ten years of pre significant change that we're not in a tip toe around quite some girls have serious needs and grow skating as are all the places we conserve pushing thirty versus tiptoeing through our hispanic growth and when i came to girl scouts of the usa we had about a hundred and fifty thousand hispanic girls and our membership nationwide announcer were three hundred thousand and that has been very intentional to sing with and we are a major partner with muslim communities as they have popped up across the country and yet what we found is you know if you are authentic in serious about wanting to serve girls and their families and there's a common denominator i mean there are things that families want for their daughter's they want them to have safe places they want them to learn they want to be successful in life and they want parents in their daughters to be close to what their daughters to have good friends and you know all of those things are very much that we have

found you know serve the same across all cultural groups so that's the sort of the that's the common ground for girl scouting can be such a partner if we come to the table with the belief that it's just a matter of finding the right kind of partners having volunteers too are as diverse as the girls being in community and not sort of feeling like you're gonna fly by in you know a hot poster girl scout new round of an american he disappeared the care plan for him being part of the community in yet staff who were present across the onus for so that you represent at diversity from top to bottom in an across and when you do then in any intent is real and families know that families know if cross cancer there because they really care about and honors arthur just they're trying to remember some numbers up to eleven of love

notable i know no i never thought enough as an author until i just had to tell the story so at and i don't know why i have a couple of ideas in mind like so well was i think a huge thing was collecting the story that really this particular story was inspired because i i do believe that gender balance in leadership in this country is a solution then is often overlooked in could be a huge benefit to how well the country does this is a very small book is a huge book to be written on a thank you so much for coming and again to run out of time by god you for watching and dancing and all four words keep reading it's because

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