Street Project: The Bridge to Volunteering in the Big Apple

Dress_for_success.jpgby Natalie Sabia (New York City)

Connecting busy Manhattanites with volunteer opportunities appropriate to their skills and demanding schedules can be a difficult task. “Street Project Inc.” is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization takes on that challenge, serving as a bridge for NYC professionals who are looking to give back. “It’s a good way for volunteers to give back to the community and also connect with other people,” said Stephanie Strauss, co-project leader for the Dress for Success project and Director of Communication for the organization. Founded in 1987, volunteer-run Street Project offers volunteer opportunities for all schedules; a majority of the projects take place on the weekends and don’t require a weekly commitment. “The great aspect of Street Project is you can get involved as much as you want to your comfort level and feel connected,” said Susan Raffel, Co-Executive Director.

Volunteers come from an array of backgrounds including law, finance, education, fashion and publishing. “There are a lot of young professionals who volunteer, but we’re open to anyone,” said Raffel.

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Are Working Women Mean?

by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Do women treat other women poorly at the office? If you read the newspaper you probably think so. In January, The New York Times ran a story called “A Sisterhood of Workplace Infighting.” The article talked about “the pink elephant lurking in the room” that women are their own worst enemies at work. Then in May the Times ran another article, this one titled “Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work.” The article did point out that 60 percent of workplace bullies are men, according to The Workplace Bullying Institute. However, it went on to discuss that the 40 percent of female bullies tend to bully women more than they bully men.

The Glass Hammer also reported on the bullying study. Both our story and the New York Times piece shared stories of women treating women poorly, because sometimes they do. But then again, people in general can be mean sometimes. Our article, unlike the Times’ story, also pointed out that women are the most targeted overall (57%) by bullies.

It makes sense. By definition, bullies pick on those who have a hard time defending themselves. Bosses are usually better positioned to defend themselves. Subordinates are not. And since men still dominate the top managerial positions, there are more women subordinates in the workplace. So the fact that more victims are women makes statistical sense.

The Glass Hammer is also full of stories about women helping women because women do that too. But those stories aren’t as readily available in the big newspapers. If there is an elephant, of any color, in the boardroom, it is that hierarchal organizations are breeding grounds for bad behavior.

Says Gloria Feldt, women’s activist and author, “A hierarchical culture inherently facilitates behaving badly.” In that type of setting, Feldt says, women have two choices. They can refuse to adopt the workplace behavior and risk losing whatever career advancements they’ve gained, or they can adopt the dominant behavior of the culture.

A former sales manager for a financial company talks about the company she recently left. “The owners, a husband and wife bullied each other. That behavior goes downhill. People were so concerned they’d be the next on the list, they mirrored the behavior.” She left the company in March. “It was killing my marriage.” She says the office was so full of fighting and yelling, she started to bring the workplace behavior home. This woman does not think bullying is a gender story. She says it’s a “culture story. Women get blamed for being the bitch. But this is about people who don’t have social skills.” Today, she is happily married and running her own business.

Many academics and corporate coaches think that as women gain critical mass in Corporate America, that we will see a shift in dominating, hierarchal behaviors in favor of more cooperative, compassionate offices. But until that critical mass is gained, how can women thrive without adopting negative cultural norms? Can they break the cycle?

Feldt, who is the former president of Planned Parenthood, and has experience leading a large organization, says women should, “Be a sister to one another. Offer to help one another.” When women support each other, they can protect themselves from negative environments and model different types of behavior. Consider this email exchange between two women who used to work together at a large computer manufacturer.

“I was at a Woman’s Leadership Conference today. The morning speaker talked about what makes a great person and I was thinking of you. I remembered how your sense of humor, friendship and hospitality got me through my experience. Thank you.” And in response, “Thanks for your note … I am flattered. I always loved hanging out with you too. That’s what girlfriends do for each other!”

When women support one another that type of exchange is the norm. When they fight, we hear what another woman told me about the technology firm where she works. “I see it as women feel threatened more easily than men. They constantly feel the need to prove themselves and that at times bring out the nasty in them. Women are very territorial in the work place. Men are more willing to help out then women. That’s my experience.”

So to answer the original question, do women treat other women poorly at the office? No more than people treat people poorly at the office.

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Returning to the Practice of Law via New Directions

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iStock_000004428195XSmall_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Carol, an employment law attorney, stopped working for about 7 years after her third child was born, instead leading a life filled with childrearing and community involvement. When her youngest child started going to school, Carol decided to explore ways to use her law degree but realized that it might not be that easy to return to the practice of law. “[During my time at home], I really broke from the law…I did not feel like a lawyer.”

Virginia had a similar story. “I had worked at a big Wall Street firm and in-house at a large company. I had my first child and kept working. And then I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I retired and stayed at home for 14 or 15 years. Then came a time when I felt I should get myself back to doing something. [I] had been great at raising funds for my children’s school [among other things]…but there is a certain confidence that you don’t always have. You may have lost touch with all those professional contacts you had before. I found myself feeling a little isolated and out of touch.”

Jeanette also started with a Wall Street practice but realized that that practice didn’t really “match” with [her] family so she became a stay-at-home mom. “I did always think I’d go back to the law eventually. I did a variety of pro bono matters while raising the kids. I even set up my own small practice doing small commercial matters but I wanted to be back in a more organized office setting.”

Jim had been working in labor relations since the 1970s, when he decided to go to law school. Upon graduation and the passing of the New York Bar, Jim continued to work in labor relations and human resources, using some of the legal skills he acquired in law school but never actually practicing law. When the management team at the company he worked for was changed, he decided to seize the opportunity and become a full-fledged practicing attorney 24 years after earning his law degree.

Carol, Virginia, Jeanette and Jim were among the panelists who spoke at a recent open house for the New Directions program offered by Pace University Law School. The program, on which we’ve reported before, assists admitted attorneys who’ve stepped away from the practice of law to develop the skills and connections they need to return to the profession.

The program begins with a “boot camp” at which the attorney participants learn (or re-learn) the necessary practical skills to enable them to jumpstart their legal careers, including how to navigate the computer based legal programs like Westlaw and Lexis, hone their legal writing skills and effective management their time and stress.

Said Virginia of the process, “One of the very first things we did in boot camp was create our elevator speech. We had to stand up and say ‘I am X and I am an attorney.’ It was very hard for a lot of us because we spent so many years saying, ‘I’m so-and-so’s mom.’”

The week-long “boot camp” is followed by 2 to 3 sessions per week for three months, at which participants are introduced to various practice areas and career paths. Attorneys are also given hands-on assistance with their résumés, cover letters, and interview skills.

Carol said, “It also taught me things that I never really needed to know before, like how to find a mentor, how to take all the things I’d been doing as a stay-at-home mom and figure out what the transferrable skills of those things were (and there were many) and put them on a résumé to make myself marketable. I also learned how to network – something I never had to do before because I went right from law school into a firm. So it taught me all these valuable things.”

Arguably the most valuable component, however, is the externship through which participant attorneys can gain recent work experience in the practice area of his/her choice. Amy Gerwitz, the director of the program, and her team work with each attorney participant to find a suitable externship, whether it is a government, law firm or in-house position the participant attorney desires. “When we first started this,” explained Amy, “we only contemplated one externship per person. As the program went on, however, there have actually been people doing externships concurrently. They’re trying different practice areas; some are doing complementary ones.”

“The externship is valuable for several reasons,” said Carol, “It is for an extended period of time (i.e., 10 weeks) during which you are developing knowledge, gaining a mentor perhaps and then you have current work experience and recent referrals. Without that externship piece, it is hard to move on.”

And while Amy and her team make no guarantees of employment upon the completion of the program, they will do what they can to help the participants get back to work in the legal world. “We view our mission as preparing [returning attorneys] to have the skills to get back into the legal workforce. Given uncertain economic times and the resultant effect on the legal profession, there is an understandable concern [about the lack of opportunities]. But while it is not our ‘mission’, we are happy that over half of the former participants in the New Directions program are now in permanent paid fulltime positions and many others are staying with their externships while they are looking for permanent positions.”

Virginia added, “Nobody gets to where they are on a straight shot. Maybe we’ve all taken a detour but there is a way to get back into the workplace and [Amy and the team at Pace] are there to help.”

Pace Law School will be offering its New Directions program in NYC this summer. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis through June 15, 2009. Please visit the New Directions website for more details.

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Building Leadership Capacity

by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Annie McKee believes we are witnessing one of the greatest changes in human history. The rapid growth of new forms of communication — Facebook, Twitter, texting — all offer an incredible opportunity for women to make a powerful impact on the world.

“We have to admit that things have gone fundamentally wrong,” says McKee. “We can pretend this is a blip or we can craft a new change.”

McKee knows something about creating change. She has taught leadership at Wharton and helped the University of Pennsylvania’s senior team bring about a large scale organizational change at the school. She is also the founder of the Teleos Leadership Institute, an international consulting firm. Clients include Merrill Lynch, Reuters, UniCredit Group, United Nations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Unilever, and Schering-Plough.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: How to Show Employers That You Fit the Job

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

If flexibility, versatility and cross-training are all the rage these days, why do recruiters seem to hold so firmly to the belief that a candidate must “fit the profile” exactly?

The above question is valid, and it demonstrates why boilerplate qualities with no substance or tangible metrics attached are meaningless.In the above example, flexibility, versatility and cross-training are the boilerplate qualities. Many job descriptions ask for these. Therefore, these are not going to be the deciding factors; they’re a given. Instead you need to find what makes that job unique, how that will be measured and appeal specifically to that. When you do that, you fit the profile, and that’s what employers and recruiters want.

How does the position contribute to the bottom line?

Focus on that responsibility and give specific examples of when you did just that. If these examples are in a different industry or functional context, explain explicitly how you would handle this in the industry/ function for which you are interviewing.

What are the management and reporting requirements of the position?

If you need to manage direct reports, give examples of when you managed direct reports. If you need to report into different areas, give examples of when you worked cross-functionally.

What is the success culture of this company?

Do your homework to identify what personality traits are specifically valued for this company. Then showcase how you have these traits, not the traits that every company says they want (work ethic, team spirit, flexibility, versatility, blah, blah, blah).

Many jobseekers position themselves so generically that they seem to be saying, “I fit any job.” You want to demonstrate that you fit a specific job. Specificity is the key to a successful job search.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Email her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com and ask how you can attend a free SixFigureStart group coaching teleclass.

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Tone It Down

iStock_000000533281XSmall_1_.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

It has been ten years since Fortune Magazine ran its harsh feature story on Silicon Valley CEO Kim Polese. The article, titled “The Beauty of Hype: A Cautionary Tale of Silicon Valley,” criticized Polese for creating and capitalizing on a “glamour queen” image. When the story came out, women in Silicon Valley cried double standard. After all, nobody was scrutinizing Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs’ looks. Fast forward to 2009. A lot can happen in ten years. But has anything changed?

Just last month the Wall Street Journal ran a story titled “Cracking the Hedge-Fund Dress Code for Women.” In the article Wall Street women discuss how tricky it can be to dress for work. Try too hard and you’re inappropriately sexy; not hard enough and you’ll never get ahead. It should come as no surprise that women are judged not only by what they do but also by how they look. After all our female leaders in Washington are examined as much, if not more, for how they look than how they lead. We’ve all heard about Condi’s boots, Hillary’s cleavage and Michelle’s arms.

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Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Conference Addresses Work Life Balance

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By Jessica Titlebaum (Chicago)

The Exelon Corporation ’s chief executive officer, John Rowe, ruffled some feathers at the Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Conference in Chicago last week when he said in his keynote speech, “If you want work-life balance, you don’t belong on an executive board.” Just before saying that, he had explained that Exelon values diversity and that he has employees of a large variety of cultures and creeds. “It is hard to teach diversity when everyone looks like you,” he said. Which is why his prior statement came as such a surprise. When asked to clarify, he said that senior level jobs take a totality of time and that balance becomes impossible in certain professions.

Baraz Samiian, a diversity consultant in the Diversity Strategy and Development department at BlueCross BlueShield of Florida said that Rowe may not have been aware of the implications of what he said. She took from his speech that if you have younger children, parents who need to be taken care of or other personal and ethnic commitments, you need not apply.

“He is preaching about being open to change but he said that unless you assimilate to the old style corporate culture, there is no room for you on the executive board,” said Samiian.

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Voice of Experience: Lilly Chung, Partner, Deloitte LLC

Lilly_Chung_color1_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Lilly Chung, a Partner in Deloitte LLC’s San Jose office, loves a challenge. When she and her family emigrated from Taiwan to the United States when she was in her early teens, she barely spoke English. Yet, as the oldest of three girls in her family, she became the de facto representative of her family. “We came here when I was 14 and I had to be the spokesperson for the family. (My parents didn’t really speak English that well. They never really became part of society, never had a formal English education.) I did the family tax returns and all other documentation [among other things]. I also always worked while I studied; even in high school I had a job to support the family. It taught me not only to really appreciate what I have today but also that even when you have a hard life you can still be happy, feel very loved and have a lot of hope for the future.”

Shy and unsure of herself and her place in US society during her high school years, she focused her attention on excelling at school, which efforts resulted full scholarships to USC/UCLA for her in electrical engineering. “From a personal perspective, I was very shy and lacked confidence [in high school] because I lacked a social network that comes when you grow up together with classmates in the US – I never fit in. But that’s why the way for me to excel was to study very hard and be a good student.” Read more

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In Case You Missed It: News Round-up

martin.jpgContributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group

In case you were too busy to have kept up with all the news, contributor Martin Mitchell has gathered some important market events from last week to help you start this week well informed:

Mergers and Acquisitions

  • Details were released of the bid by a consortium of 11 banks and inter-dealer broker Icap for LCH.Clearnet. The cash offer is at €11 per share, valuing the clearing house at €830m.

  • EDF announced the sale of a 20% stake in British Energy to Centrica. The deal will see Centrica pay around £2.3bn for the stake, half in cash and half by handing over its 51% stake in SPE, Belgium’s second largest power producer. The stake is being sold to Centrica at a 6% discount to the £12.5bn value of British Energy by EDF when it acquired it just a few months ago. The discount was explained by EDF’s chief executive as simply ‘symbolic’ of the minority position being acquired, and would not lead to any writedowns on the value of British Energy in EDF’s accounts. EDF was advised by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Centrica was advised by Goldman Sachs.

  • Abraaj Capital, the Middle Eastern buyout firm, is in talks to acquire a minority stake in DP World, the world’s fourth largest ports operator. The stake is thought to be around 15%, which would be valued at approximately $1bn at current prices.

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Change 1 Child

Ghana_1_.JPGby Natalie Sabia (New York City)

As founder and Executive Director of Change1Child, Simone Adjei takes great pride in her organization because she is able to witness the changes that take place the lives of children, one child at a time. Founded in 2008, Change1Child is a not-for-profit organization that reaches out to failing schools in New York City and takes action against literacy. “Change1Child works alongside communities with underprivileged children and provides them with a reading program,” Adjei said.

Adjei works full time as a derivative specialist on Wall Street. But after working in finance for nine years, Adjei decided to pursue her dream of helping children as well. “I was happy with my career in finance, but I was intrigued by education and became apart of the Board of Education community,” said Adjei.

She came across an article in the paper that detailed the scheduled closings of the failing schools in the New York City area. Adjei ’s immediate thought was, where are the kids who need extra help going to go? “By sending them to better schools, without receiving more attention, I felt as though most kids would fall behind and I wanted to do something about it,” said Adjei. Read more

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