Take More (Calculated) Risks: Five Ways to Build Your Risk Instinct and Get Ahead

Attractive business womanBy Kate McClaskey (New York City)

At The Glass Hammer’s recent panel on women in IT, several of the women spoke on the importance of taking calculated risks in order to get to the next level career-wise. But many women have a problem “sticking their neck out” and taking that big assignment. Why? Is it related a physiological or body-chemistry factor? Or is it about cultural conditioning?

One one hand, a 2009 study revealed that women with more testosterone take more risks than women with less testosterone. Maybe that’s a sign that risk-taking is related to physiology – and Sheila Kolhatkar’s NY Magazine article “What if Women Ran Wall Street” references several studies in favor of a physiological basis for risk-taking behavior. On the other hand, as Kolhatkar writes:

“[no one] would argue that all men are aggressive, egotistical, and stubborn—or that all women are conservative, rational, and levelheaded. And being reductionist about hormones and gender is a sure way to misjudge a complicated individual.”

Acknowledging that there are other factors at play in risk taking skills (like cultural, workplace, or family influence) means we can seek out ways to become better risk takers – and reach new levels of success in our careers. Here are our top five ways to nurture your ability to take risks.

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Not Just Pajama Parties: Making Remote Working Work

iStock_000000157050XSmallBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“People would love to work in their pajamas, on their own schedule and get around the consistency of 9-5,” says James Sinclair, CEO of OnSite Consulting, a U.S. based consulting company that focuses on insolvency, distress, and concept repositioning, with a mission to help remote workers be more productive. “However, remote or flex working is wholly dependent on the employee and their ability to work in a quasi-autonomous environment and use it to their advantage. If it is about working just enough to get by then it won’t work.”

Sinclair’s assessment is common to many employers: flexible working including the option of working from home is a leap of faith. However, OnSite Consulting has made it work – and in fact, from the company’s inception, its founder decided against bricks-and-mortar and created a remote workforce instead. Sinclair is clear that a remote workforce can generate a return on investment. The remote workforce model saves his company $1million a year in overheads. “For me, only with the advent of group collaboration tools, cloud based document storage and VOIP can I actually ensure that my employees are completing their work and I am constantly managing my workforce,” he says.

Sinclair judges his teams on their results, not hours spent at their desks, and this is a major change in thinking for many organisations. “For some employees, they love this approach and can speak openly about when they are unavailable because their confidence in their position and their completion of assignments speaks for itself,” Sinclair explains. He adds that even if employees are tied to their desks there is the expectation that they will carry out some personal tasks like paying bills during work time – simply because they are at work during business hours. “Remote working has allowed open discussion regarding personal time and what is expected,” he says.

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Five Financial Companies with Fantastic Diversity Initiatives

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By Kate McClaskey (New York City)

In a time when companies are rebuilding their business models to include a more diverse workforce, financial corporations are paying attention. Black Enterprise magazine recently released its list of the best companies for diversity, a list which consists of companies that the magazine believes have achieved a high level of inclusion of minority individuals – including race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The Best Companies for Diversity list was made through surveys of the top 1,000 publicly traded companies, focusing on technology, sales, marketing, and human resources. Below is a roundup of BE’s five top financial companies in diversity.

Northern Trust

Named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers and one of the top 50 Companies for Executive Women, the Chicago based financial company boasts not only an annual Chairman’s Diversity Advocate Award Program which recognizes employees who make contributions to diversity efforts, but Diversity of Work training to encourage work groups to value their people and their contributions.

Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion Mark David Welch promises progressiveness and training with the support of diversity councils. “Northern Trust has long recognized the invaluable role of diversity, and this recognition is a testament to our belief that fostering a globally diverse and inclusive workforce is fundamental to our success as a business enterprise and community advocate.”

The company also gives priority to programs in diverse neighborhoods while offering a broad variety of business groups including Women in Leadership, the TNTPride (LGBT) Community, and the Black Business Resource Council. All combined, this makes Northern Trust an inclusive culture that enables the company to hire and retain a diverse workforce – which Welch says leads to better ideas and innovations and brings out the best in our employees.

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Ask-A-Career-Coach: Increasing Career Confidence

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart™

Confidence attracts. I’m not talking about arrogance, which really bothered me when I was a recruiter and still bothers me (because who wants to deal with that!?). I’m talking about quiet confidence, poise, that “it” factor of believing in yourself and knowing you will get things done. Projecting confidence in a job interview, business meeting or sales call is difficult. Many people, even with a healthy dose of overall self-esteem, can still waver in these high stakes situations. Here are some tips for increasing your career confidence:

Keep a wins journal. Every day, document all the wins, big and small, that accrued during the day. It might be as simple as a follow up call you’ve been meaning to do that got done or not losing your temper with a colleague that irks you. If you are trying to specifically improve your career confidence, highlight your wins on the job or job search and any action steps you took to advance your search or career. But don’t forget to include general wins, like maintaining your exercise routine or making a date with your significant other. Your personal wins will improve your confidence in the professional arena. Over time, there are 2 benefits: 1) you will see all the things you have accomplished and have a pattern to recognize what areas are working; and 2) since you now have to document what you’ve done, you have built in some accountability to force you to get stuff done.

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Dual Career Couples – Tips for Making It Work

iStock_000000837540XSmallBy Gigi DeVault (Munich)

Have you seen Up in the Air? The camera cuts to the interior of a hotel bar. We see two women sitting over drinks. Worldly, successful, confident, Alex Goran has scooped up the pieces of the broken young Turk-ette, Natalie Keener, who has just received a “Dear Jane” text message from her boyfriend. Keener ticks off the desirable attributes of her dream husband. In turn, Goran advises the young woman: “You know, honestly by the time you’re 34, all the physical requirements just go out the window…Please let him earn more money than I do. You might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day—otherwise that’s a recipe for disaster.”

Suppose we take Mrs. Goran’s recipe for disaster and change out some of the ingredients: The basic recipe we want is intended to create the greatest measure of couple happiness. Starting at the top of the happiness scale, the couples who report the most happiness are upper-middle-class, two-career couples.

In fact, sociologist Paul Amato of Penn State reports that these couples are three times more contented in their marriages than couples in the group who rank next highest on the marital happiness scale—couples in working-class and middle-class families who hold to a traditional division of labor with only one breadwinner. This more than just a nod to 1950s aspirations—a chicken in every pot being stirred by a happy homemaker. What makes these mixes leaven, suggests Amato, is that these dual-career couples have egalitarian attitudes related to child care, household chores, and shared decision-making. But, according to the Penn State professors, an otherwise good recipe for marital happiness can be ruined when the wife adds too many working hours. Marital stability is shaken when the wife in egalitarian, dual-income families works outside the home more than 45 hours per week.

Yet, both men and women are working longer hours outside the home. About 66% of married couples had a spouse at home in 1970. Today, that number is closer to 40%. In 1970, the combined average number of hours worked by couples in a week was 52.4, compared to 63 hours a week in 2009. The new economy binds job security—terminology that has changed radically in the last few years—to longer working hours. Dual-income families are the norm for families in the United States (and readers of The Glass Hammer). A happy home environment means you’re better positioned to achieve more at work, shatter glass ceilings, and claim your seat at the table. Here are a few tips for making it work at home, so you can work better in the office.

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Voice of Experience: Annica Lindegren, Partner, White & Case

Foto Lindegren_3x4cm_300dpi_tifBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

For Annica Lindegren, partner at White & Case and head of the firm’s bank finance practice in Germany, a keen focus on providing top service for her clients has been one key to her success – the other is finding a unique balance between her work life and family life. Working in Frankfurt during the week, Lindegren heads home to her family in Spain on the weekend.

She says, “In a sense I have found my work/life balance. When I’m home my priority is my family, and when I am here [in Frankfurt] my priority is my clients (but of course my family is always a top priority). The clients are aware of my travel situation, and it hasn’t affected their view of working with me or the team here.”

And the balance seems to work – Lindegren expresses pride in the team she’s built in Germany, and the success it has seen since the start in 2001.

She continues proudly, “Within 3 years [of starting at White & Case], we were nominated for The Bank Finance Firm of the Year in Germany by JUVE, a guide to the legal profession which ranks lawyers and law firms in Germany. And we won in 2006. We were nominated last year again – all in all we’ve been nominated 4 times with one win.”

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-Up

Beth 005Contributed by Beth Collinge of CTG – a division of ILX Group plc.

In the US, President Barack Obama signed into law the nation’s Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill: the most comprehensive overhaul of banking regulation since the 1930s. In Europe, the results of stress tests on Europe’s leading financial institutions showed that only seven of 91 banks failed to meet capital requirements. Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have pledged $1bn (£659m) for a rapid response unit to battle future spills in the Gulf of Mexico, as US oil climbed to almost $80/barrel as a storm threatened the Gulf region.

Economic Backdrop

  • Global equity markets reacted well this week to encouraging earnings reports and robust European data releases despite Friday’s news that seven European banks had failed stress tests. The disclosure that seven out of the 91 institutions examined had failed the tests was roughly in line with expectations in the markets – although there appeared to be some scepticism about the methodology used.
  • Worries about the recovery in the US resurged when Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, described the outlook as “unusually uncertain”.
  • In the UK, figures released on Friday showed the economy grew at its fastest pace in four years in the second quarter. The UK’s gross domestic product rose by 1.1%, far greater than the 0.6% rise forecast, thus taking the UK’s annual growth rate up to 1.6%.
  • The data supported sterling, prompting speculation in some quarters that the Bank of England could move to exit its ultra-loose monetary policy stance sooner than expected. Over the week, the pound rose 0.8 per cent to $1.5416 against the dollar.
  • The euro touched a two-month high against the dollar above $1.30, although it retreated slightly by the end of the week, as the credibility of stress tests on European banks was called into question. Over the week, the euro eased 0.6 per cent to $1.2820 against the dollar.
  • In commodity markets, US oil climbed to within a whisker of $80 a barrel, helped by a storm threat to the Gulf of Mexico’s energy infrastructure, but the general improvement in investor risk appetite, and the firmer tone of the dollar, pushed gold back below $1,200 an ounce.
  • Government bonds also lost some of their haven appeal, with the yield on the 10-year US Treasury edging up 2 basis points to 2.96 per cent over the week. But the two-year US Treasury yield touched a record low of 0.56 per cent in the aftermath of Mr. Bernanke’s cautious comments.

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Brand Preservation: Five Critical Steps for Effective Crisis Communications

Susan 07_2008Contributed by Susan Stern, President, Stern + Associates

Few companies or organizations will never face a serious and immediate challenge at some point during their history. How effectively and quickly the organization deals with the threat and communicates with the media, customers, employees and other key publics often determines how its products, services and corporate leaders are viewed – positively or negatively – for many years to come.

What essential steps should executives and managers take to avoid damaging their brand and ensure a positive outcome when a crisis occurs?

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Movers and Shakers: Rachel S. L. Minard, Partner and Managing Director, Optima Fund Management, LLC

RSLMBy Gigi DeVault (Munich)

When the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley opened in 1991, it marked the first time that five United States presidents had gathered in one place. This prestigious gathering of ribbon-cutters—Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr. and their respective First Ladies—at the largest Presidential library in the nation, could be attributed to a number variables. Three factors come immediately to mind: Longer lives due to improved health care, Presidential privilege, and the marketing acumen of Rachel Minard.

Fresh out of Northeastern University in Boston, from which she graduated with honors in journalism and philosophy, Minard got her start in marketing with the launch of the library. She has, since that time, focused on launches of a different sort.

Skip ahead one year, from Simi Valley to London. Pareto Partners, a currency overlay investment management firm had opened its doors about the same time as those of the most recent Presidential library. A young woman named Rachel Minard was hired as assistant director of marketing and client services at Pareto, helping the firm grow to one of the most highly respected currency overlay firms in the world.

Minard’s is both an “opener” and a “closer.” Early in her career, Minard was hired to be an opener. First she opened her own marketing firm, and then opened a Presidential Library. Her next decade would be spent securing new assets for her firms, raising well over $9 billion in her career. In a new position created for her, Partner and Managing Director, she was hired in May by the hedge fund-of-funds firm Optima Fund Management to open and oversee their San Francisco office as well as build the firm’s global institutional business from the bottom up. She has 18 years experience building businesses and raising assets globally for investment management companies. Minard knows how to close business, too. For the last eight years, Minard has been engaged in building fund of hedge fund firms into global institutional powerhouses.

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Why Communicating CSR Efforts to Women Can Really Pay Off

iStock_000008881479XSmallBy Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids, MI)

Currently women make up about half the U.S. workforce, so more than ever before, retaining women in the workplace is an important issue. Many businesses offer work/life balance, flex time, and other family-friendly incentives to attract, inspire and keep female employees, but a recent survey shows another surprising way to make women happy: do good, and tell the world about it.

A survey conducted by the Simmons School of Management and Hewlett-Packard during the 2009 Simmons School of Leadership Conference reported that female employees who thought their employers were ethical and supported socially responsible initiatives were happier with their jobs, thought less about quitting, and were more likely to champion their company in social settings. However, the findings also showed that since many women were unaware of their company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, employers were missing out on this unexpected benefit.

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