Would you turn down an idea to build a brand in a few years that results in more than $200 million in revenue? What if you could hire someone who doubled, tripled, or even improved your results ten-fold? If there was a simple way to increase your market share, would you take it? What if you knew that a coworker, whom you largely ignore, knew something that would contribute to your rapid promotion to senior vice president? Would you pay attention?

These are real circumstances in which men found themselves. The smart and savvy ones saw the opportunity and grabbed it by listening, hiring, or working well with a woman.

You are one of these men. You’re one of the good guys. You don’t enjoy succeeding at someone else’s expense. You are committed to fair play. You want to do the right things related to women in the workplace. You know you do. You see what’s going on in some companies. No one needs to explain how wrong it is to you. You are fed up. You are not part of the “bro culture.” You are embarrassed by the actions of some presidents, CEOs, and venture capitalists (VCs). You don’t want to be identified with them, or turn a blind eye any longer. Your wife, sister, mother, and/or daughter work, and they’ve told you about the difficult circumstances with which women deal in the workplace, and you don’t approve. You also want what’s best for your son. You want to be happier at work.

You respect women and know their value. You are well aware of the business case for why the presence of more women in the workforce, particularly in leadership roles, will help you, your company, and your family. You have and see job openings that are hard to fill. You know that more than 50% of university graduates globally are women. You see the war for talent that’s underway to attract and retain the brightest minds and the people with the best skills. You know that many of the brightest minds are women: Mary Barra, Chairman and CEO of General Motors; Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook; Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo; Safra Catz, co-CEO of Oracle; and Raja Easa Al Gurg, Managing Director, Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group are a few examples. Think of the women you know, the women you work with and see regularly. Your highly talented coworker may be sitting in the cubicle right next to yours.

You are ambitious, and you care about your career. You want to win. You are not afraid that you will lose your job or miss out on a promotion you deserve if women are treated equitably. You cherish competition – bring it on! Competing against top performers elevates your game. You’ve never believed that there are a finite number of jobs or opportunities. Innovation and new job creation is all around you. And who wouldn’t want some of the women I just named on their team or leading them? Successful women leaders hire, develop, and advance men’s careers and businesses all over the world. Talent – in no matter which gender it appears – rewards those who leverage it.

You are doing your best. You are tired of being told that you have unconscious bias – and of course, everyone does! You recognize that more diversity will benefit everyone, not just the groups of people who were previously left out or discriminated against.

Furthermore, you don’t subscribe to outdated cultural/societal views of the role of women. You consider your wife/girlfriend as your partner, not your housekeeper, and you share household tasks and childcare duties with her. You enjoy life outside of work: being with your family, your children (if you have them), and your friends. You want the women you work with and love to have work environments that are free of bias or discrimination and full of opportunity. You want your son to have all the career options he’d like to consider.

You want to do the right thing in your workplace and in society. But you don’t know how to change what’s been happening or make things better. You are afraid of saying or doing the wrong things, and you don’t want to be afraid anymore. While you understand how the #MeToo outpouring occurred and admire the courage of women who came forward, you may also be worried and even a little anxious. You are worried about what the post - #MeToo work environment means for solid, professional relationships between men and women at work. You have female colleagues and clients and don’t want your interactions with them to be strained. Will it still be possible to make a female friend at work? Are the days of meeting a future girlfriend or wife at work gone forever? And you are fearful because men and women can let private conversations sometimes go to places that later cause regret and harm. Who hasn’t made this mistake?

You’d like to know more about how increasing gender diversity can specifically help you with your own career or business aspirations and not lead to fewer opportunities for you, other men, and your son. If you just knew what it all meant and what to do about it in simple, straightforward, actionable and pragmatic terms.

Over 50 percent of business leaders said they need to do more to attract, retain, and promote women to leadership positions.¹

—Ernst & Young Global Limited

Four Guiding Truths

I have worked with, coached, and developed male and female business leaders for the past 25 years. I’ve worked with them in the United States, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and Australia. I’ve worked with them one-on-one and in groups. I’ve also surveyed and interviewed them. Here’s what I’ve observed:

1. Most men in professional settings are focused on their own careers. They want to win and to be a part of winning teams. They have no interest in keeping women down.
2. Like men, most women in professional settings are focused on their own careers. They want to be members of high-performing teams to solve problems and win in the marketplace. They don’t think that men are intentionally boxing them out.
3. Both men and women unconsciously and consciously thwart the efforts and advancements of women.
4. Women don’t want to walk behind men or in front of them. They want to walk beside them. They know, like you know, that the world’s problems and opportunities can only be solved through the shared engagement and leadership of men and women – a vision of workplace gender parity that I term WE 4.0.

Over the past decade, I’ve focused much of my attention largely on equipping women around the world to accelerate their business success. During this period, I wrote Undeterred: The Six Success Habits of Women in Emerging Economies, the first career-advice book for women in these markets, and I spoke to thousands of women at conferences, universities, and corporations. I’ve guided women on what to do and say to achieve their personal definition of professional or business success and on how to work more effectively with men.

I didn’t choose to do this work to “help” women. I don’t think about it that way. Women don’t need my help, as they are capable on their own. What drives me is global economic advancement. I believe that educated women are the most underutilized asset the world has and that we will drive economic prosperity when men and women work together as equals. I wanted to use my background and expertise to increase the economic participation and leadership of women and to equip men and managers to leverage the collective strengths of both men and women. So, that’s what I set out to do.

To address the needs that professional women and female entrepreneurs expressed to me, and based on my research findings, I launched The Way WoMen Work, initially a career-advice website for women in emerging economies. Today, the platform serves a much broader audience and now also provides men, managers, and leaders with actions that improve their results by working more effectively with women. I’ve spoken to thousands of women around the world at companies, conferences, and universities sharing concrete, research-based actionable advice that they could immediately implement to make a difference in their careers and businesses. Women regularly write to tell me about their pay raises and promotions. Trupti Jain, an entrepreneur I coached as part of the Cartier Women’s Initiative, received an award of USD $100,000. The company she cofounded with her husband is transforming agricultural irrigation. Often when women follow up with me to talk about their improved success, they also talk about improved relationships with male colleagues and bosses, and, very importantly to them, with their husbands.

Female talent remains one of the most underutilized business resources, either squandered through lack of progression or untapped from the onset.²

—World Economic Forum

I was pleased and gratified by the impact I was making, and I wasn’t looking to change direction until I was confronted head-on by an urgent need in the marketplace, and three opportunities converged right in front of me compelling me to write this book.

Men began asking me to help them work more effectively with women. As I walked down the hallways of leading companies around the world, men literally stopped me to tell me something like this: “Why are people like you always here to speak to, or train women? It’s as if something is wrong with women such that they must keep going through remedial training. How come no one ever comes to train us on how to improve the way we work with women? I already understand the business case for why we need more women. I acutely feel the need for high-performing talent. What I need is someone to tell me how to do a better job recruiting and retaining women.”

Dominic Barton, the global managing director of McKinsey & Company, framed it like this: “Front-line managers need help. Change does not happen without the full engagement of front-line leaders. These are the plant managers, regional sales leaders, store managers, team coaches, and general managers who make companies tick.”³

A senior male leader at a public entity led by a female CEO whose company, like many other companies, has invested heavily in women’s leadership development initiatives, earnestly implored me for help, saying, “We spend a lot of money to develop high-potential women. I want to support the women who have completed our women’s leadership development program, but I don’t know the best things to do.”

On university campuses on four continents, young men in great numbers attended my speaking engagements that were clearly intended for women. On one campus in the Republic of Georgia, the number of male students outnumbered the women in attendance 10 to 1. When I asked the men why they were there, they told me they wanted to know more about working with women because they knew they’d be working with, for, or managing women in their careers. In March 2018, a male university student asked me questions about how I became a “strong” woman. Another question was about how women become “strong” and confident. What makes some women more career-oriented and others not?” Before responding, I inquired why he was asking me these questions. “I want to marry a strong woman. I want a partner in my life.” he replied.

These men and their questions captured my attention. When these incidents increased in frequency, I knew I needed to do something to address their expressed needs. I began with a couple of speaking engagements to small groups of managers, the first of which was at Procter & Gamble in Mexico City. Interest and demand from companies and conference organizers increased. The topic became a major part of my focus and work in the United States, South Africa, Mexico, the UAE, and Ukraine. A few years later, and after making positive headway and inroads with managers and leaders, an explosive issue surfaced.

People around the world finally believed that sexual harassment was more frequent and prevalent than they had previously acknowledged. Even though most men are good guys, there are a few bad ones, hogging the spotlight, which cast a pall over other men. To name just a few of the widely reported reprehensible actions of several high-profile leaders that came to light around the time I was writing this book: The United States of America elected a president who spoke openly about groping women. In Silicon Valley, Travis Kalanick, founder of one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, Uber, was forced to resign as CEO of the company. He lost his job in part because he led a workplace culture that condoned making highly inappropriate remarks about women (some by Travis himself), sexual discrimination, and harassment. If that weren’t enough, one of Uber’s board members, David Bonderman, made sexist comments at the very meeting the company held to discuss improving its culture. He also was forced to step down.

Then, there was the removal of VCs including Dave McClure as the CEO of 500 Startups, one of the most well-known Silicon Valley business accelerators, after revelations of their sexual misconduct. Around the same time and adding to the mountains of existing information about prevailing gender inequities, a study was released showing that VCs – both male and female VCs – ask women entrepreneurs different types of questions than they ask male entrepreneurs when they consider pitches for funding. They tend to ask men questions about the potential for gains (the upside) and women about the potential for losses (the downside).⁴ Dana Kanze at Columbia University, one of the people who conducted the research, explained to me that asking these types of questions can impact the investor’s financial returns by overexposing them to downside risk in investments made in start-ups led by men and underexposing them to the upside risk in start-ups led by women.

In Hollywood and the media sector, the predatory behavior of high-profile men – including Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Louis CK, and Matt Lauer – was reported on an almost daily basis. The #MeToo movement and its equivalent in many countries took off as thousands of women took to social media, blogs, and mainstream news media outlets to talk how they had been sexually harassed or assaulted. The news media also began to more widely cover harassment of lower-income women who, like some high-profile women, had endured unaddressed hostile work environments for years. In January 2018, the Time’s Up movement and fund were launched to support lower-income women seeking justice for sexual harassment and assault in the workplace and to advocate for legislation against companies that tolerate persistent harassment. When the magnitude of the problems that many women face became evident, men and managers felt ill-prepared, confused, and unsure about how to best interact and work effectively with women.

The predominant approaches relied upon to equip and advance women were deemed insufficient to realize the business and economic dividend that would be achieved through gender parity. It became clear that men, managers, and leaders had been largely left out and insufficiently equipped to take individual responsibility to increase female hiring, improve working relationships and work environments for women, and to actively advance them.

McKinsey & Company is globally recognized for its research on closing the gender gap. Here again, from an article written by its managing partner, Dominic Barton, for The Wall Street Journal:

“Less than half of all workers see managers taking advantage of the diverse strengths of their teams or considering a diverse lineup of candidates for open positions. What this tells us is that managers are either not getting the message or don’t know how to manage differently.

Faced with these challenges, it’s time to rewrite our gender playbooks so that they do more to change the fabric of everyday work life by encouraging relentless execution, fresh ideas, and courageous personal actions.

As our research underscores, we need to look more carefully at the day-to-day experiences, for better or worse, of the people in our organizations.”⁵

What does all this mean for you?

Gender Parity Is Good for All of Us

Gender equality, men and women working and leading equally together, leads to higher performance and profitability. A plethora of studies show that countries can improve their GDPs if more women participate in the workforce and in leadership roles, that diverse teams are more creative and make better decisions, and that companies with more women in executive roles are more profitable and have higher share prices. Look for more detail about and references to these specific studies in Chapter 1.

Just as important, perhaps more important to you, more working women and women in leadership can improve your life and your performance. Obviously, gender equality benefits women. But, have you thought about how gender parity also benefits the sons, daughters, and partners of the women?

One study across 24 countries showed that girls raised by a working mother had higher incomes than women whose moms stayed at home full time. And boys raised by working mothers were more likely to contribute to household chores and spend more time caring for family members. “There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother,” says Dr. Kathleen L. McGinn, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School HBS, who conducted the study. “There’s a lot of parental guilt about having both parents working outside the home,” McGinn says. “But what this research says to us is that not only are you helping your family economically – and helping yourself professionally and emotionally if you have a job you love – but you’re also helping your kids. So, I think for both mothers and for fathers, working both inside and outside the home gives your kids a signal that contributions at home and at work are equally valuable, for both men and women. In short, it’s good for your kids.”⁶

When women have more occupational choices, so do men. When more women work, and are in senior well-paid positions, men don’t have to carry the burden of being the sole provider. When more women work, men are more likely to spend more time with their children, which is very positive for both the children and their dads. Almost every single one of the 250 women from around the world whom I interviewed for my book Undeterred cited their dad as a major positive influence on their career success.

Gender diversity is also an advantage to you in your career or business. If you are able to build and work effectively with a high-performing diverse team, your results will outpace your peers and your competition. A gender-diverse team is a competitive advantage. It may seem counterintuitive, but when you accelerate the success of women, you accelerate your own success.

Here’s my favorite example of how it works. Be sure to read this if you want to get ahead in your career. Paul, a relationship manager at a bank, didn’t spend much time with the female client-service representative on his team. Since his clients were generally pleased with the service they received from her, he didn’t give her, or what she did, much thought. As a result, he didn’t know much about her, the full range of her capabilities, or her potential until one morning, when he overheard her talking to a client. Without looking at a computer screen or referring to any documents, she rattled off detailed information to the customer about the balances in their accounts. He called her into his office and asked where she was getting the numbers from and how she was able to recount them so easily to the customer. She explained that every morning when she came into the office, she spent time reviewing each client account and relationship and that she had a great memory. He tested her by asking questions about various other client accounts. She was able to correctly answer every one.

Now she had his attention. He asked her why she was in her current role and discovered she’d taken the job because it was the only position available at the time she applied. He asked her about her career interests and ambitions, and she shared that she had higher aspirations and the skills to go along with them. During the conversation, he had an “aha” moment: If they worked closely together, perhaps they both could be much more productive. And if he positioned her to achieve her ambitions, she could help him achieve his.

Paul began to give his coworker more responsibility and stopped assigning small administrative tasks to her as he had formerly done. He spent time with her discussing their clients and strategizing opportunities to further develop their accounts. Their new way of working together resulted in significant growth in their client relationships. Their novel approach was so successful that the bank made a video about the way they worked together as an example and model for similar teams in the bank.

During the next few years, the two of them were assigned and expertly handled the client portfolios of four other teams. They continued to excel. At every opportunity he had, Paul spoke highly about his female colleague to senior leaders and regularly praised and recognized her. She was promoted. He was promoted. Eventually, although they no longer worked together, both he and she became senior vice presidents.

You want to produce results. You want to succeed. You want fair competition and a level playing field. How can you have that if you utilize only half the talent pool and compete with only half the players? This imbalance is what we have in today’s work environment.

Progress to Achieve Gender Parity Is Stalled

Globally, we are no longer making strides in our efforts to achieve gender equality. We were told and we believed that when more women were educated and more women joined the workforce, the problem would be solved. But that has not been the case. While the education rate of girls and women around the world has risen and is in many places on parity with the education rates of boys and men, and while entry-level positions in many companies are held equally by men and women, these strides have not translated into significantly more women in leadership, more funding for women entrepreneurs, or more women in executive leadership or as directors on corporate boards. The reality is that the global gender gap actually has widened and that at our current rate of progress, it will take more than two hundred more years to close it!⁷

For the past few decades, the primary strategy implemented by institutions to increase gender balance in their workforces and in leadership roles, has been to teach women what they need to do differently: how they can be more confident, how they should ask for a raise, get a sponsor, and improve their personal brands and executive presence. In essence, they train women on what to do to succeed in a “man’s world,” the business environment where men hold most of the power.

But these institutional and business efforts have largely fallen short. Their approach, on one hand, is to develop women, empower women, and increase the visibility of successful female role models, and on the other hand, to enlist executive leadership commitment and make workplace practices and policies fair and inclusive of the needs of women. While these strategies have been important and necessary inputs to the equation and have brought women to the point of inclusion, they aren’t getting us any further.

What is missing? We now recognize that well- intentioned people who work on gender equality, and companies all over the world, have not fully enlisted men and front-line managers and have not equipped them to individually become part of the solution.

Sure, some CEOs and executives have made pledges, set gender-equality goals, and made gender inclusion a priority. Many are deeply dedicated and committed. The chairman of one of the largest professional services firms in the United States confided in me that some people have even cautioned him not to go “too far” in making changes to increase diversity. And, although many companies and CEOs include gender equality in their top ten business priorities, gender outcomes across the largest companies are not changing.⁸

A central reason for this lack of progress is that middle and front-line managers and male coworkers who interact with women daily have not been looped in. Elisabeth Kelan, PhD, Professor of Leadership at Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom, frames the situation like this: “Seventy percent of managers and leaders are men. They are the people who can make change happen.”⁹

With the exception of blaming men and telling them that they are unconsciously biased (just like we all are), very little has been done to involve and equip men, and all front-line managers and leaders, to fully include and advance women. Men are told why achieving gender parity is the right thing to do, but you haven’t been told why it’s right for you and what’s in it for you. Most men, managers, and leaders have not made achieving gender balance a business priority. Instead, without personally doing anything about it, they are convinced that with enough time, gender inequality will no longer be an issue. My dad always told me that hope was not a strategy.

The men who stop me in the hallways or raise their hands at the sessions I’ve conducted for entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders at Fortune 100 companies like P&G, PwC, Barclays, GM, Microsoft, and American Express, are not like the few highly visible, sexist men we read about in the news. They are like you – the managers, entrepreneurs, and coworkers who respect women and want to say and do the right things.

Here’s part of the problem. The modern workplace was created by men for men in an era when very few women worked. The intention was not to keep women out. Women were just not factored in. And so, workplace rules and culture were largely developed to be comfortable for men, not for men and women.

A few examples of how workplaces developed as a result: Specific office hours were set even in environments where they weren’t necessary to serve customers or run a factory. Since women then (and now) take on more household and family tasks, this rigid schedule made it harder for women to work. Client development activities and networking, social activities to get to know teammates and company leaders, revolved around activities like golf or socializing in a bar after work during a time when most women did not golf and did not feel comfortable or have the time to go out drinking after work. Sports and military analogies were regularly used at work to describe strategies or tactics analogies; they did not resonate with women in the same way. While we are well beyond the bygone era when most women did not work, these types of norms persist, especially in companies, including in the technology sector that still has a predominantly male workforce. Ping pong tables, video games, and beer pong are familiar in work spaces. Posters that would be more appropriate in a boy’s locker room or bedroom are hung on office walls. At a recent angel investor conference, attendees were invited by a participant to a “cigars and drinks” get-together. The result from situations like these is that women are not as comfortable or as satisfied in these types of settings, and their needs are not being met.

People create culture. And people like you can change culture. You can create a better work environment for yourself and for the women you work with and care about. You don’t have to wait for your company or anyone or anything to start. You are an essential missing key that can unlock the underleveraged talent pool of women. You and millions of men and women like you can change the workplace to one where both men and women have the opportunity to thrive every day working side by side.

I’d like to show you how.

Keep in Mind

One of the most important points to keep in mind while you are reading this book is that there are many more similarities than differences between men and women. According to Louann Brizendine, MD, American scientist, neuropsychiatrist, and author of The Female Brain and The Male Brain, “More than 99 percent of male and female genetic coding is exactly the same. But that percentage difference influences every single cell in our bodies – from the nerves that register pleasure and pain, to the neurons that transmit perception, thoughts, feelings, and emotions.^”10

The second point is that knowing that you are unconsciously biased about women does not do much. Making people aware that they are unconsciously biased has been a key strategy that many companies have unsuccessfully used to address gender imbalanced workplaces. But awareness alone does very little. Every person on the planet, men and women, including me, is unconsciously biased. The morning I started writing this introduction, I was so disappointed in myself after I realized that I had unwittingly made one of these unconscious assumptions – about a woman, no less! I was reading a New York Times article about a Russian attorney who met with one of President Trump’s sons and some aides in the weeks leading up to the November 2016 election. As I read along, I clearly pictured a male attorney. But when I got further down the column and the attorney’s name was revealed, I was shocked. The attorney was a woman. How could I, of all people, have made such a biased assumption?

To change our perception of a group of people or circumstances requires action. Clearly, I need to take more actions myself!

Unconscious bias is not an indictment. It’s like an operating system that unbeknownst to you runs on autopilot in the back of your brain. Our brain can only process so much information, so it creates shortcuts using prior knowledge and experiences to make assumptions and influence our decision making. These cognitive shortcuts become our biases. Learning that we are unconsciously biased in many everyday interactions is just information.

There is evidence that educating people about their biases does very little, if anything, to reduce these biases. The way we can minimize them is by taking individual and collective action.¹¹ Our biases are not hardwired. And although it’s not easy, we interrupt them when we act differently. While we all have biases, and both men and women have some negative biases toward women, the most important thing to know is that people everywhere are working hard to overcome their unconscious biases and succeeding in doing so. You can too!

People everywhere are working hard to overcome their biases through intentional action and are succeeding in doing so. You can too.

This book describes the individual actions that the most successful managers and leaders take to build diverse high-performing teams and equitable work environments. In this case, these actions are specifically related to one type of diversity, gender. This is not tokenism. To me gender parity does not mean only advancing women, it means men and women working equally together. Part of being a great leader and manager is treating everyone on your team fairly and equitably and creating an environment in which each person can excel.

The actions contained in this book are individual in nature. You can take them no matter what type of environment you work in and no matter what your organization or the people around you are doing or not doing. This is not a program or initiative. Your actions are not dependent on anything or anyone else. Both men and women can take these actions. But, I wrote this book primarily for men because today most managers and leaders are men and because men keep asking me what they can do to work more effectively with women.

The actions contained in this book are about working more effectively with women, but if you take them, not only will you be a better manager of women, you’ll be a better manager of all types of people, including men, introverts, people of different cultures, millennials, and the incoming Generation Z.

I recognize that what I am asking you to do won’t always be easy and may at times feel uncomfortable. These behaviors may be different from the familiar ways on which you and many male leaders have typically relied. They require you to step out of your comfort zone and take some risk. The women you work with and your company’s leaders want you to do these things because they are important to them and good for business. As importantly, these actions also will help you be more successful in your own career and be a better colleague, manager, and leader.

If you start with a goal to be fair and operate with the beliefs that women want to advance, that having more women in the workforce will expand, not shrink, the pie of opportunity for everyone, and that when women succeed, men don’t lose, you will drive better results and working conditions for yourself, as well as for the women you work with and care about. It bears repeating: When you elevate women, you also will secure your own success.

Ready?

How to Use This Book

I recommend that you:

1. Read this book once all the way through. At the end of every chapter, ask yourself: Do I take appropriate steps to intentionally advance everyone on my team? How do I recruit, retain, and advance men on my team? How does that compare to what I do to recruit, retain, and advance women on my team? What should I do differently if I want to reap the benefits of a gender-balanced team? You will find a quick self-assessment tool at the end of each of the core chapters to guide you.
2. Skim through the book again and:
   • Jot down some actions you can commit to take.
   • Pull out some ideas to share with your colleagues and teammates.
   • See if there are any sections you’d like to discuss with the women with whom you work to gain their perspective. Listen intently to what they say.
3. Keep the book on hand. When you are going into a meeting or an interview, or you are about to have a discussion with a woman, use the book and remind yourself of what she might want and how you can be a great situational manager to her. The WE 4.0 At a Glance section and the WE 4.0 Checklist at the end of the book are designed to be quick reference guides for you.
4. If you have ideas or come up with additional actions that would be helpful to men and women in the workplace, send a note to [email protected] or tweet me @thewaywomenwork. I look forward to hearing from you.

I did not write this book to enlighten or inspire you. I wrote it to enlist you and equip you to act. If you want to understand and genuinely support gender inclusion and want fair play, if you want both the women and men you know and love to have equal opportunities and work in inclusive environments, and if you want to change the future for your son, daughter, loved ones, and colleagues, then this book is for you. As importantly, if men and women want to succeed together and prosper in this new era of work, we will need to work more effectively together. Choose whatever drives and motivates you. This book is not about what not to do. It’s about what you can do. This book is not about reading; it’s about action.

A gender-diverse team is a competitive advantage. It may seem counterintuitive, but when you accelerate the success of women, you accelerate your own success. If you are able to build a high-performing diverse team, your results will outpace your competition.