Dear Friends,

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the amazing outpouring of support and comfort regarding my mother's recent death. I have never felt so sad and alone and, at the same time, so completely loved and surrounded with support and kindness. You are really quite amazing and generous beyond words.

As you might imagine, I have been very reflective in these past few weeks, particularly as my family and I spent eight days and nights praying first for a miracle and then for the strength to carry on without my mom's physical presence.

As I wrote her eulogy I found it difficult to sum up her life briefly and was struck by what a huge impact she has had on all whose lives she touched (she was a teacher most of her life) and on me.

I learned two important lessons during this time. First, I learned that it is imperative that each of us has a "Living Trust" document so that we don't leave our loved ones at the mercy of the courts or confused family members (my mom took care of this, thank goodness). Second, I was reminded how important it is to communicate to our loved ones, how much and why we love and appreciate them (my mom and I did this every month so there was no question about it). I hope these insights will be useful to you in some way.

ELSC

On the organizational front, we just completed the second face-to-face session of our pilot program, Executives Leading Sustainable Change. That this program was an absolute success was made even clearer by the participants' extraordinary accomplishments throughout the program.

Several women were promoted to more senior accountabilities, while others reported that this program allowed them to dramatically improve their performance and their teams' performance. One of the biggest breakthroughs was the ability for these women to identify and use their "currency" (the credibility, influence and power they had gained while making it to the top, but had not fully utilized) to forward their team and organizational goals. This created a whole new game to play and opened up a larger role for who they are in their organizations.

Several participants were able to move their teams from a narrow focus of operational silos to an enterprise focus of executing the strategy.

Through implementing the practices of the program many attendees were able to forge productive relationships at senior levels with people who had been previously considered 'ogres' and 'tyrants.' Shifting these relationships from roadblocks to partners increased their teams' successes exponentially.

Participants also noted the incredible value it was to have a community of leaders and learners at this level and that they were a great resource to one another as senior women in organizations.

Please let us know if you would like to talk more about your participation (or someone you know) in the 2003 ELSC program.

New IWL Location

We are thrilled to have new corporate offices in downtown Redwood City. We will be moved after November 1st. Please feel free to stop by 805 Veterans Blvd., Suite 230 in Redwood City if you're in the area.

New Office Manager

We're delighted to have a new office manager and administrative assistant to Rayona, Jenell Sausser. Jenell comes to us with years of experience in owning her own company, marketing, and office administration. Please take time to introduce yourself to Jenell if you call in. Jenell's email address is jenell@womensleadership.com.

Sad Good-bye

We also are reluctantly saying goodbye to our dear friend and colleague, Heather Hinrichs, who is moving to the next phase of her career. We deeply appreciate Heather's tremendous contribution to IWL this past year and wish her the best of luck in her pursuits.

Australia WLC

I will be leading WLC in Australia in October and continuing our quest to increase the number of women cabinet level members to five after their next Prime Minister election. We hope to include some of our Australian colleagues in IWL's programs based here in the US in 2003. If you are traveling to Australia, please contact our IWL sponsor and sister organization, Teleran (http://www.teleran.com.au) so that you can connect with alumni down under!

We love to hear how you are doing and what amazing accomplishments you have, so please give us a call at 650.366.7350 or drop us an email (rayona@womensleadership.com or jennifer@womensleadership.com).

We deeply appreciate your partnership and stand ready to support you in your leadership journey.

Love and hugs,

Rayona