Whether already working with mentors or thinking about doing so in the future, mentees should keep a few things in mind to maximize the benefits and to minimize the stress.
Failing to put enough thought into career objectives, expecting mentors to do most of the heavy lifting and neglecting to show appreciation for the time commitment made by mentors could put a strain on the mentor-mentee relationship.
On both sides of the Atlantic, middle aged women have disproportionately suffered job loss in the years since the great recession began in 2008. Back in 2012, The Guardian reported on data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics and told us that “unemployment among women aged 50 to 64 has risen by 39% in the last two years, compared with an overall rise of 5% among over-16s.” A recent article in the New York Times, based on information from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, tells another troubling story: “Since the start of the recession, the number of working women 45 to 54 has dropped more than 3.5 percent.”
In the UK, the dramatic increase in unemployment and decrease in labor force participation in women over 50 is being attributed to two factors: downsizing in the public sector and elder care. In the US, it is assumed that middle aged women are dropping out of the workforce mostly to care for their aging parents. Elder care is a very real issue, but it isn’t the only one. Since this trend accelerated during the recession, there must have been important factors related to the economic downturn, as well. Have late-career women continued to drop—or be pushed—out of the labor force in the new economy, and what is going on beneath the surface?
Following Up
According to 2014 data from the Office for National Statistics in the UK, the unemployment rate for women between 50 and 64 has decreased by 12% since that 2012 article was written, however, the decrease in unemployment for men in the same age range has been much higher: 31%. Based on data from the same source, it appears that British women in the last third of their careers were still struggling in 2014. It is likely that the decrease in the number of public sector jobs, where British women are overrepresented, has indeed played an important role in this. It seems that unemployed women who previously worked for the government may be having trouble finding new jobs.
The US statistics on labor force participation show that middle-aged men and women took a similar, recession-related hit. The reason why unemployment among later-career women stands out is because it’s in contrast to much more static levels of employment among younger women. In the US, the recession hit men aged 20 to 34 harder than women in the same age range, but mature women were hit as hard or harder than men of the same age. Since young women tend to be the lowest paid employees, this might reflect a purge of workers who have traditionally earned more: men and higher level employees of both sexes. It’s also related to the fact that young men are overrepresented in construction and manufacturing, which are especially sensitive to economic troubles. That said, the diminishing role of US women in their prime earning years is a cause for concern. Most of the experienced leaders who hold top positions in business and finance are 40 and up.
Some late-career women who have dropped out of the workforce have done so because of job loss. Others quit their jobs to care for aging parents or to change tracks. The problem is, both voluntary and involuntary job loss in the middle years can be devastating to future earning potential. The dynamics of unemployment in the last 15 or 20 years of a woman’s work life are complex and are affected by both age and gender. Since the recession, many late-career professionals who lost their jobs have been forced into lower paying and lower status work. Faced with that eventuality, some women are doubtless choosing to abandon the search for work if they can afford to. Nobody wants a reduction in status and a cut in pay.
Perhaps some middle aged women are fed up with glass ceilings, realize that they’ll never be as successful as they’d hoped, and are leaving large corporations at the height of their careers. But are they dropping out of the labor force permanently? Some are taking the time they need to refocus and begin new projects. In the US, women are the majority of entrepreneurs and in the UK, the number of women starting their own businesses is increasing steadily. Many women who have not been handed leadership positions in larger organizations are starting their own companies, where they can take the lead much more decisively, guiding the culture and direction of an enterprise.
There’s no denying that many women who should be at the height of their power in business and the professions—women in the final third of their work lives—are feeling frustrated, especially if they have not yet been able to meet their professional goals and are feeling stuck. However, the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, elder care is incredibly demanding both physically and emotionally, and simply not working? Many find that it isn’t as nice as it sounds. Family is important, but in most cases, there is a way to stay close to aging parents without sacrificing everything else.
When we’re faced with a late career challenge, there are so many answers other than dropping out or accepting defeat: transfers, job switches, entrepreneurship… and sometimes the answer is simply to call on other family members and professionals for help with aging parents, or to restructure our thinking about work after a period of unemployment.
By Deidre Miller
So, bonuses are paid and you are ready to make a move to your next job. You have your reasons for leaving and they are one or more of the following:
Over the next five weeks we will look at each of these factors to give you a sanity check on whether you truly are leaving for the right reasons.
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work
“When I started my career, I didn’t appreciate the extent to which different is good in our business,” says UBS’s Janine Shelffo. “Thinking differently and approaching problems from different angles is critical in coming up with great ideas for clients. Being authentic is more important than fitting the stereotype of an investment banker and is a stronger foundation for building long-lasting client relationships. As I look back on my career, I believe that being a little different became one of my biggest strengths.”
Shelffo, who describes her career path as “surprisingly linear,” recently celebrated her 26th anniversary of working on Wall Street. After graduating from Georgetown, she started as an investment banking analyst in mergers and acquisitions, then focused on high-yield and distressed investments before earning her MBA from Columbia Business School. She returned to investment banking at DLJ, where she joined the sector coverage team focused on tech, media and telecom and has subsequently maintained that focus for almost 20 years, working for Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers prior to joining UBS seven years ago. Shelffo currently co-heads the firm’s Technology, Media and Telecom investment banking effort for the Americas.
When asked to describe the professional achievement she is most proud of, Shelffo laughs and points to her resilience, having survived two bankruptcies and three sale transactions of her employers during her investment banking career. “You have to learn to replant, reposition and roll with the punches, and commit to earning the respect of new colleagues along the way,” she says. “Hopefully the volatility of the financial services industry won’t be quite as dramatic going forward, but the fact remains that the ability to adapt and reinvent yourself is a key skill set in our dynamic industry.”
Right now Shelffo is immersed in the significant impacts of disruptive technology across the sectors she covers.This includes significant changes in consumer content consumption, communication and purchasing habits, including mobile adoption that has been faster than predicted. As a result, the economic models in the industry are changing dramatically as advertising dollars shift away from historical categories with incredible speed, content bundles unbundle, consumer appetite for subscriptions is tested, and the line between content and commerce blurs. In addition, the sheer amount of data and information available on customers and their purchasing and consumption habits has increased exponentially.
Not only are her clients trying to adjust their businesses to prosper in the changing landscape, many of them are also suddenly facing new competitors as some of the historical distinctions between technology, media and telecom companies fade. Shelffo says all this disruption is incredibly intellectually stimulating, and adds that the best part of her job is waking up every day confident that she will learn something new.
As co-chair of the Diversity Council for UBS Investment Bank in the Americas, Shelffo feels good about the cultural transition that has taken place during her years in investment banking. “I believe the business case for greater diversity and inclusion in our business has been proven and that the large Wall Street firms are intensely focused on it,” she says. Yet negative stereotypes of a male-dominated investment banking environment persist, and she admits to being frustrated when some young women on college campuses shun the industry without thoroughly investigating it. In fact, she says UBS and other banks have started reaching out to women on campus earlier, specifically to get to them before they form false impressions and make up their minds that the industry is not for them. To that end, Shelffo took matters into her own hands and conducted a speaking tour on college campuses last year entitled “Navigating Wall Street in Heels.” She also created a webcast on “Women on Wall Street” for the bank’s inaugural sophomore program that was distributed through social media and is available on UBS’s website.
What she does see as a potential impediment to increased diversity is a lack of senior female role models. This makes it harder for women to see themselves as the primary client interface and can undermine the self-confidence necessary to bring their whole selves to work as they move along the career path. “Being a trusted advisor to clients actually requires a lot of skills that are more stereotypically female, such as gently building consensus, fostering collaboration, active listening and navigating emotionally charged situations. Our role is often to help other people look smart and, for better or worse, that’s something that women generally do well.” In addition, Shelffo points out the significant increase in gender diversity among clients in her coverage sector and notes, “Our female clients are delighted to see gender diversity on our side of the table too.”
Shelffo urges younger women to resist what she sees as a growing trend to try to plan their whole lives before leaving college. “These days I find that many young women are calculating how the job will accommodate a family and evaluating the merits of finding a career path that’s less demanding before they’ve even started out,” she says. “If I’d had that mindset, I might have talked myself out of investment banking and never discovered what an amazing career it can be. In truth, it would have been entirely speculation since I had no idea then what it would be like to be a mother or how supportive my future husband would be of my career.” She advises young women to focus on how to maximize their learning and build a strong foundation to create career optionality, rather than trying to be clairvoyant about how their lives could unfold a decade or two down the road in a particular job.
These days, Shelffo views diversity among new hires on Wall Street as less of an issue than retention of women over the long term. “Our incoming class was 40% female last year and I feel very good about that,” she says, “but data shows that across Wall Street there is an acceleration in female attrition starting at the director or vice president level,” which is typically the point when women are stepping up to be a primary client interface and are also often simultaneously starting their families. Transitioning from subject matter expert to new business originator can be very intimidating for women and men, and it often happens at the same time they are dealing with meaningful transition in their home lives.
She sees some women opting out at that juncture because of the pressure they put on themselves. “We hire women who are Type A and used to being the best of the best.When you’re balancing a family with a banking track, you are often out of your comfort zone on all fronts and it becomes harder to feel like you’re doing an A+ job in everything,” she says, adding that many conclude they’d rather find a less-demanding career path to get back to feeling “best” in all areas of their lives.She points out that raising preschool-aged kids, while working in a demanding occupation, is a really challenging life stage for both men and women, and that it is difficult to maintain perspective and appreciate that it’s a relatively short period in the arc of a long career. Shelffo commends financial services firms for doing what they can to support young families and applauds UBS’s recent increase in paid primary and secondary caregiver leaves by 33% and 50%, respectively, in the United States.[C1]
Shelffo says her diversity council is intensely focused on the issues of female retention at this mid-level and is launching multiple initiatives aimed at that population. For example, Advance, a year-long UBS program for Directors that was launched in 2015, combines networking between women to encourage peer support, individualized coaching to increase skills and confidence and a sponsorship program that encourages senior executives across the bank to champion these women. “We have incredible rising female talent in our investment bank and these women are poised to become the next generation of amazing role models, so we want to support them in every way we can,” she says.
She is sympathetic to the challenges the managers of these women face in their efforts to be supportive. “They want to make sure that their promising women know that there are opportunities to downshift if they want or need to, but don’t want to be patronizing or suggest that their ambition levels have suddenly changed because they are starting families,” Shelffo says, acknowledging that it’s a difficult balance to strike and that managers are understandably worried about saying the wrong thing. Her diversity council is also launching a Fostering Diversity & Inclusion training program for senior managers in the investment bank to provide them with the right support and tools to feel better equipped for those conversations.
“A career on Wall Street is a marathon not a sprint. It’s critical to recharge in order to foster creativity and original thinking,” Shelffo says. She claims that her best ideas for clients rarely come to her while she’s in the office and that clients don’t enjoy spending time with people who do nothing but work. Shelffo says that while she and her generation might not have thought twice about devoting every waking minute of their lives to their jobs when they were starting out, she commends today’s graduates for generally having more well-rounded definitions of success, which are more sustainable over the long term. New UBS initiatives like “Wickedly Smart Working” solicit and implement the best crowdsourced ideas from junior bankers to reshape current work practices in order to encourage employees to be successful in every dimension of their lives. [C2]
Shelffo is passionate about extracurricular activities which quiet the mind, and credits painting, yoga and meditation with being important to sustaining her own personal balance.A part-time student at the Woodstock School of Art, she now enjoys taking weekend painting workshops with her 13-year-old daughter, whom she proudly describes as an amazing artist.She is also a trustee of the Kripalu Center in the Berkshires, the largest yoga and meditation retreat center in the country, and executive sponsor of the first UBS mindfulness program pilot in development for later this year.
“There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for balance in a demanding career path,” she says.“It is a deeply personal thing.It’s an issue for men just as it is for women, and it’s not just about family time.You must have the self-awareness to figure out what you need for renewal and the self-confidence to create space for it.”
I have learned that technical expertise is essential. But clients assume all advisors have it. So it merely gets you into the game. What helps you to win the game is your capacity to collaborate with others,” says Ana Malvestio, tax partner and diversity and inclusion leader for PWC Brazil.
Malvestio started with PWC as a secretary while still in law school. She gleaned an important on the job education typing letters that partners sent to clients. She soon asked if she could start as a trainee. She was shocked when her boss turned her down. He said it would be too challenging for a woman because it involved lots of travel and it would be difficult to manage with eventual family responsibilities.
She persisted in her quest for an opportunity. Subsequently she became a trainee and the first woman in the tax department of her São Paulo state office. She has proved more than capable of balancing career and family demands: she has since been married and had two daughters, now ages 13 and six. And as the partner in charge of PwC Brazil’s Agribusiness industry specialty, her role is hugely significant. Brazil is the second largest global supplier of food and agricultural products. So Agribusiness is one of the most important sectors of the economy. It accounts for 20% of GDP and 43% of all Brazilian exports.
Ana is justly proud: “It’s motivating to serve an industry that feeds the world: in future, Brazil will contribute 40% of food consumed by the world’s population.”
Partnering with an Agribusiness Association in Brazil, Malvestio conducted a survey to identify the role of women in the sector: “it’s still very much a male dominated business which spurs me on to drive change,” she adds.
Malvestio faced scrutiny from clients at first: sometimes she had to take a male consultant to meetings because clients wouldn’t interact with her. “It’s changed a lot,” she says, but she is determined to do more. Much more.
Her proudest professional achievement? “That’s easy,” she says, “I get so much satisfaction from contributing to the careers of my team and the success of women in the office”. She’s thrilled that another partner and director in her office began as her trainee and she’s now promoting another woman to director position. “Women in my position must make it easier for the next generation. That will be our legacy”.
She continues to encounter the stereotype she first worked against. Women don’t receive the same opportunities as men because others assume they will be compromised in their careers by families. “Careers are equally as important for women as they are for men: I wouldn’t be a complete person if I stayed at home. You need to find what makes you happy. For many women that’s the feeling that you are contributing to something, to have your own achievements. Your family are the most important people in your life. But they are not everything, and I am a better mother for having a career which gives me satisfaction.”
Malvestio supports the UN “HeforShe” initiative as a way to reposition perceptions of women and achieve greater equality. “If we keep the debate only among women, we will not change the conversation. Men have to be involved and together we can improve things for everyone. It’s not just a woman’s problem.”
In her diversity and inclusion role, she has been instrumental in launching a flexibility policy for mothers. She insists employee reviews are based on results, not hours worked. She also inaugurated a diversity and inclusion committee involving partners and key talent managers, pushing diversity firmly up the agenda. Nothing gets in her way.
A music lover, Malvestio adores live concerts-everything, she says, from the local orchestra to global rock bands. She has travelled extensively across Europe and the United States and always incorporates adventure into her travel for PwC. “When I have an opportunity to travel for a meeting, I will search out the best theatres, art galleries, restaurants and landmarks so I can immerse myself deeply in the country or city I am visiting. Every holiday we are on the road, and my daughters love it just as much as me.”
You can call storytelling a fine art, a talent, a method, a skill, the mark of a leader or all of the above. But what proves effective storytelling is a powerful leadership asset? Well to get technical about it, neuroscience does.
Research into the neurobiological impact of storytelling by Paul Zak shows that stories change the activity in people’s brains. Powerful character-driven stories produce neurochemicals that enhance our sense of empathy (thinking, feeling, and responding the same way as the character) and motivate us toward cooperative behavior – “stories bring brains together” and people with them.
Paul Zak recommends professionals to begin every presentation with a “compelling human-scale story.” His experiments in business settings show that emotive character-driven stories equate to better understanding and greater retention of your key speaking points weeks later. “In terms of making impact,” he writes, “this blows the standard PowerPoint presentation to bits.”
David Hutchens, author of Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators & Meaning Makers says that leaders are “rediscovering that story is the most efficient path to creating connection, engagement, and shared meaning.”
According to Hutchens, leaders are connecting the power of stories with the ability to address pressing issues facing organizations such as capturing decisions, knowledge and wisdom after the event; engaging Millennial talent through organizational purpose; creating value; and defining individual and organizational identity.
Certainly top female executives such as Meg Whitman and Indra Nooyi leverage the power of stories in public speaking. We also recognize stories for their potential and power to make diversity personal, inspire women on pathways to leadership, and to advance gender equality.
We know stories are integral to leadership. According to researchers and consultants Stort and Nordstrom in Forbes, “Proper storytelling just might be the most impactful leadership method yet.”
And leadership communications expert Dianna Booher writes, “Storytelling makes leadership possible. A leader without the ability to tell a great story has lost the platform and power to persuade.”
Going even further, perhaps stories are leadership. Research by Parry and Hansen transcends “the notion that leaders tell stories”, and instead proposes “that stories themselves operate like leaders” or “the story becomes the leader.”
Stories clearly play a starring role in pivotal and powerful leadership moments. We tend to think of the big impact presentations, heroic personal tales, and big organizational stories. But storytelling is also integrated into everyday leadership situations in various ways.
Finnish researchers Auvinen, Aaltio, and Blomqvist sought out “storytelling managers” (managers who often integrate stories into leadership situations and conversations), identified by those reporting to them, to understand why they brought narration into leadership situations and how it related to trust-building.
They examined managers’ use of story or narratives and the intention behind using stories. They identified seven categories of influence that stories were used for, of which there are likely multiples more. The first two are:
Motivation – Motivating co-workers to carry out tasks, adopt behavior, or achieve goals. These stories often brought in comparison or competition and/or revealed values and attitudes as encouragement to elevate the game.
Inspiration – Inspiring a shared vision and energizing towards higher order goals. These stories often brought in faith and supremacy over competitors through a focused collective effort.
We often equate leadership storytelling with motivating and inspiring – epic stories that lay out a great quest or heroic stories that portray triumph over adversity to reach an ultimate goal.
In Forbes, Stort and Nordstrom identified four great stories leaders tell to engage people, which seem to fall mostly in these categories:
They note that stories play a huge part in showing appreciation, as research has shown that among people who report the highest morale at work, 94% agreed their managers are effective at recognizing them, or telling stories about their work.
The storytelling managers also used stories for other more subtle purposes:
Prevent/defuse conflict – Making co-workers feel involved and defusing a negative atmosphere. These stories used humor or personal experiences to break the energy.
Influencing boss’s thinking – Managing up. Opening a manager’s perspective by promoting creative or new thinking. For example, conveying a changing market by telling a personal story that leads to discovery of a new insight or new reality.
Discovering a focus – Empowering co-workers to freely explore new ways of doing things, to shake up what’s not working. These stories might focus on examples of big unexpected changes or setbacks that ultimately catalyzed success or new advancements by wiping or changing the slate, blessings in disguise.
Direct trust-building – Showing empathy, identification and concern, or role-modelling. For example, cheering up a co-worker through an empathetic story of shared experience; revealing a story of personal vulnerability/failure to encourage self-trust or persistence; or sharing a personal story in which the manager has role-modelled or championed behavior they seek to identify and encourage in the team.
Dianna Booher notes in her top storytelling tips that while stories need an identifiable hero, leaders also have to be careful not to always position themselves as hero. She shares, “Audiences relate more often and learn more from ‘failure’ stories.”
Mutual trust-building – Sparking iterative trust-building storytelling. For example, first sharing a personal anecdote that demonstrates a value, or illustrates trust in and alignment with the organization, in order to encourage mutual discussion and trust.
Author and consultant Terrence L. Gargiulo writes, “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” Leaders bring in stories to close that gap and inspire greater bonding and cohesion.
While no storyteller can ever control the impact of their story, congruency between various stories a leader shares and walking the walk behind the words are both important factors for trust and credibility.
There are countless ways to use story as a leader, countless ways to get better at storytelling, and countless resources for doing so. But above all, storytelling is accessible to all managers. Stories aren’t just what top executives pull out at the annual review meeting or when introducing the next new initiative.
Storytelling can be naturally weaved into many leadership situations. Tomorrow you might tell a story about the exceptional contribution of one team member, the strategic insight that dawned on you in the most unlikely of contexts, or that devastating failure that was a huge gift only in retrospect.
Sometimes, the shortest distance between you and a moment of defining leadership might just be a story.
By Aimee Hansen
Someone has just paid you a compliment about your achievements. How do you react?According to a recent post on the HBR Blog network by Dorie Clark and Andy Molinsky, your answer to the above will vary depending on the cultural environment in which you were brought up. Self-promotion is not welcome in all cultures, especially those where humility and modesty are seen as admirable attributes. In countries like America however, self-promotion is culturally very acceptable. Some of you might think that such issues aren’t of great importance either because you don’t see the benefits of self-promotion, or because you work in cultures where self-promotion isn’t valued. Right? Think again.
Given the increasingly global nature of our work and workforces, you might come across self-promotion gurus much sooner than you expected. And what’s more, studies show they will be at an advantage over you as they will experience faster career progression and associated compensation. According to the 2011 Catalyst report (The myth of the ideal worker: Does really doing all the right things get women ahead?), self-promotion is one of the nine tactics which support career advancement. The report found that by “making achievements visible” – through seeking credit for your work, requesting additional performance feedback and asking to be considered for promotion when it is deserved –both men and women (although less so for women) saw positive gains in terms of career progression.
If this is indeed the case, then you can’t afford to ignore the art of self-promotion – especially if you’re foreign to America (or any self-promotion rich culture) and a woman. Molinsky suggests that global dexterity, the ability to adapt behavior depending on the cultural setting, is a way to address the challenge. He highlights that self-promotion is one of the six dimensions of cultural difference, and being aware of how self-promotion is viewed can be highly beneficial.
In cultures where self-promotion is not encouraged, the majority of employees believe that hard work alone will suffice in differentiating them from their peers. The issue arises when those employees transition to cultures where standing out from the crowd relies more on proactively seeking recognition. The same is true for women across all cultures who, compared to male peers, are less willing to talk about their achievements but would rather just get on with their work. Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s work on sponsorship found that many women “feel that getting ahead based on “connections” is a dirty tactic and that hard work alone is their ticket to the top”. They end up missing out on the potential to build their networks and thereby losing out on additional career advancement opportunities.
These foreign employees and some women fall into the bucket which author, David Zweig, has labeled as “Invisibles”; they are hard workers, full of potential, but lacking the motivation to stand in the spotlight and are sometimes forgotten when it is time for them to be recognized.
This lack of affinity for the spotlight may be due to a number of reasons, including a desire to focus on the work at hand, not appreciating the benefit of self-promotion, or having seen self-promotion being done badly and therefore not willing to invest in such tactics. Most of us can point to a situation when we have seen self-promotion going wrong; like all things in life – you can have too much of it.
While putting yourself in the spotlight can have its advantages, leaving the spotlight on you can start to get uncomfortable – not just for you but for those around you. Focusing on “me, me, me” can be positive if there is a purpose, but if it is constant and seen to be bragging or narcissistic (which, according to a study by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, is more prevalent now (25%) compared to 1982 (15%)), it will not have the planned impact.
So how can you self-promote effectively with the desired outcome?
Self-promotion is not about bragging or sucking up. Rather it is about ensuring your contributions are acknowledged and credit is given where due. There is a risk of not being recognized appropriately for those who choose not to embrace self-promotion when working in some cultures. Here are 5 practical steps to incorporating self-promotion in your career when working in self-promotion rich cultures or teams.
1. Confirm your objective:
Self-promotion should not be done without an objective in mind. Why do you need to promote yourself at this point? An example of a specific objective might be to highlight specific achievements ahead of your performance management reviews, so you are fairly recognized during appraisals. Without an objective it becomes bragging.
2. Be selective:
Because every act of self-promotion should have a specific objective, it is also important you are clear about who needs to be the recipient of your spiel. Going through the details of your strong performance with your peers will not have the same effect as a similar exercise with your manager. Not everyone needs to know.
3. Take an objective and fact-based approach:
“I’m not good at blowing my own trumpet”. If highlighting your achievements feels like showing off, take a fact-based approach. “The client highlighted that the way I led the delivery was critical to the project’s success” might be easier than “I led a very successful project”. By remaining objective and factual, you may find that it is easier to tell your story.
4. Remember your team:
While you should use “I” where appropriate to take credit for your individual contribution, it is also important to acknowledge contribution from others. Self-promotion should not result in distancing your team.
5. Just say “thank you”:
Being able to confidently accept credit for your work is also important. If others have recognized your contribution, there is no need to be self-deprecating to appear humble. Accept the recognition graciously with a thank you.
For women of all cultures, the above is particularly important. Catalyst reported that “77% of men were somewhat or very satisfied with their progress at increasing their salary compared to only 66% of women” as a result of applying their identified career advancement strategies. Tactics such as self-promotion only go some way to supporting career advancement for women, and while less effective for women than men, they are still worth investing in.
The most important thing to remember about self-promotion is that if you don’t do it, no one else can (or will) do it on your behalf.
By Nneka Orji
Chances are, if you work in banking, you are thinking about bonus season. If you are keen to move companies, do your research before you get your bonus and start conversations with the right firms ahead of time. Why? Well, it is sometimes like being in a bad relationship, a small gesture can make you stay for a little while longer when you know you need something different. Money is always a factor, but look at culture, growth opportunities and ultimately the job you want after the next one as you make your decisions to move. Good luck!
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work in technology
“Be brave. Take smart risks. Recognize that you belong at the table.” For Susanne Clark of Centerbridge Partners, those are three key elements for women who aspire to success in the professional world.
Clark has lived the philosophy of “smart risks,” with a career path that has involved a series of decisions to step outside of her comfort zone, each of which added a new layer of experience.
She began her career as a capital markets lawyer at Shearman & Sterling and after a few years joined Goldman Sachs in its Investment Banking Division, which expanded her responsibilities and skills to the broad range of investment banking services. She later joined a team working for Goldman’s public parent company, which extended her responsibilities and had the benefit of allowing her to see the business through an even broader lens, interacting with all of Goldman’s divisions including sales and trading, prime brokerage, research and asset management.
She became increasingly curious about asset management from Goldman’s dealings with fund clients, took a leap and reached beyond her historical skill set to join Amaranth Group, her first experience working directly for an investment adviser. From there, she took her first general counsel role at Basso Capital Management, which she found was a perfect place to learn how to hold her own as a general counsel. From there, she joined Centerbridge Partners, a private investment firm that manages capital for the world’s most prominent pensions, endowments and foundations, where she is a Senior Managing Director and the firm’s chief legal officer. In each case, she let the excitement of a new challenge overtake the fear of failure.
At Centerbridge, she has designed and developed its Legal & Compliance department, which she credits as the professional achievement she is most proud of so far, having built the department from the ground up, but with ample credit to her team for their role in the department’s success. “We have a diverse team of professionals who are dedicated to each other and their work. It is a pleasure to step back and observe how capable they are,” Clark said.
Clark knows that it’s good to be humble, but cautions women not to confuse humility with unhelpful and unnecessary self-deprecation. She says that early in her career, she wrote in a self-evaluation that she needed to “gain confidence in her new role.” Although her intent was just to set personal goals, that comment found its way into the next year’s review – “Be more confident.” Clark recalls. “Seeking to convey that I was eager to learn, I unwittingly created a false impression that I was unsure of myself. It was a good lesson to have learned early on.”
Clark finds there is an inaccurate presumption that the asset management industry is a man’s world. “In fact, investment firms are a great place for women because there is no glass ceiling. In general most asset management firms are meritocracies where success is defined and driven by one’s work product and results,” she says. “It’s a dynamic industry that offers great career mobility for motivated professionals who do excellent work.”
She has been following recent studies on board composition, which show that better decision making occurs on boards of directors that include women. And she has started to see more and more women in the GC seat within the fund industry. “It excites me to see these high-impact women at complex firms who are doing a great job for their firms.”
During her early years in large organizations, she participated in and benefitted from programs that focused on career development. At other firms, she finds the approach may be more organic, but equally powerful provided that the organization is focused on the growth of its professionals, as is the case at Centerbridge. Whether large or small, she believes that firms benefit from good managers who prioritize the career development of others.
Outside of the firm, Clark participates in various mentoring platforms and professional peer groups – including a few for C-suite women – where she has “made many long-standing friendships.” She notes that “These groups provide a context for exchanging professional insights, sharing pitfalls and triumphs, establishing connections and collecting wisdom that covers the full career arc.” Among Clark’s favorite mentoring moments was the fast-paced award-winning Minute Mentoring® program, which she describes as speed dating for career success.
Clark’s philanthropic activities are largely focused on education, including sitting on the board of an independent school in Connecticut. She also participates in a foundation that focuses on education. Though it’s not limited to girls, the group benefits girls as well as boys by helping them develop their confidence and a wide range of life skills.
By Cathie Ericson
Your professional bio is often the first impression you make when it comes to your executive presence. So how do you get the words right, before you even speak a word?
“Your bio is a strategic play and should be treated as such. A bio can help you get hired, gain visibility, and win you serious respect,” writes Meredith Fineman in the Harvard Business Review, advising from her work on personal branding.
Here’s insight into how you can overcome mistakes that undermine the impact of professional bios and achieve executive presence with yours.
Be Consistent Across Platforms
Look at every place your bio appears as a potential touchpoint for elevating your profile and career, and make it the same message. Fineman finds that a big mistake is lack of consistency across platforms. She writes, “If a journalist or recruiter cannot figure out who you are in under 30 seconds (because you have six different bios in six different places), you’ve lost your chance.”
Fineman recommends that everyone have a consistent two-line bio, short bio, and long bio. When it comes to the short versions, she advises to find the 15-second version of yourself professionally, “Think of it as trying to give your bio as an elevator pitch.”
Keep It Fresh
If you’re not updating your bio every six months, then you’re at risk of letting it go stale. Even if your position stays the same, you can reflect new achievements or experiences you’ve collected. Fineman recommends to set a calender reminder.
Use Your Last Name
It sounds more professional and carries more gravitas than your first name when linked to accomplishments.
Use Active Voice & Verbs
Research has identified significant differences between how men and women talk about their career accomplishments (women tend to understate them), and suggests that women can enhance their executive presence by ensuring confident expression about their accomplishments. The bio is an opportunity to do this in writing.
Fineman writes, “When someone has used the passive voice in their bio, it always feels to me like they’re trying to downplay their achievements. The point of your bio is to emphasize your achievements.”
She recommends to eliminate soft language like “trying to” or “attempting to” when speaking about current efforts. “That makes it sound like you’ve already failed. Remove it. You are not attempting to do it, you are doing it.”
Include Selective Achievements & Expand on Them
Your bio is an opportunity to choose your strongest achievements, purposefully include them, and convey what’s so compelling about them. Fineman argues you can’t do that with a list.
Being selective about achievements you include and put meat on them, while drawing in passions. Fineman advises, “This is a professional bio, so while you can include your hobbies, choose carefully and be straightforward rather than coy.”
Include Links To Outcomes & Actions
Treat your bio as a showcase for your work, and make it easily accessible – press releases about awards, pieces you’ve written, published results of your work, visible outcomes. Equally if there’s a call-to-action possibility, such as booking you to speak at an event, link it.
Beyond getting basics right, your bio is an opportunity to convey your executive presence. This may be especially important for women because executive presence is in the eye of the beholder and it’s more likely to be conferred upon men.
In an article entitled Executive and Board Candidate Bios: Executive Presence on Display, Paula Aisnof, Principal & Founder of Yellow Brick Path, shares perspective on how you can.
Try asking these questions.
Could I change the name & mistake it for somebody else?
Aisnof comments that most corporate bios are highly undifferentiated, providing little insight into the person behind the words, “Change the names and locations and those bios could be about 80% of executives.”
A good way to avoid this is to immerse yourself into creating your bio, whether you’re writing it. When leaders hands-off delegate their bio, they delegate their personal brand. Aisnof writes,“One reason for the overwhelmingly blandness is that bios are frequently written by third parties who do not necessarily understand the executive’s story or the targeted audience.”
If you want your bio to be involving, get involved with it.
Does it tell a story that builds my executive presence?
“Whether used for business purposes, for advancing an executive’s visibility through professional or community activities, or for job search,” writes Aisnof, “executives these days must reach beyond being a commodity in an overcrowded market of similarly accomplished peers.”
Her advice is that bios need to have a story that “entices the reader to want to get to know the executive personally and understand his or her unique talents and value.”
Harness the persuasive power of storytelling for your personal brand. This doesn’t mean turning your bio into a mini-novel or downgrading its professionalism. It means ensuring your bio reflects an engaging narrative of how your achievements, experience, and journey reflect your unique talents and value. Does it tell a story about how you’re a thought leader? Strategic foresight and execution has been identified as one of the seven skills you need to thrive in the C-suite.
Does the first paragraph bring me to life as an executive?
Aisnof advices, “The bio should immediately and accurately create a picture of the person being described, portray a person with distinguishing capabilities and qualities, and communicate the subject’s level of authority, responsibility, and expertise.”
Do you know what motivates you, what makes you excellent at what you do, why people like to work with you, and what others say about you? Aisnof has previously found that an executive brand comes down to “essense factor – who they are”, “guru factor – what they know”, and “star factor – what they do and how they do it.”
Have I given compelling and differentiating specifics?
Emphasize specifics, not generics. Don’t highlight “leadership skills”. Instead, demonstrate what makes you a remarkable leader.
“It is the specifics that set the executive apart from other great leaders and outstanding communicators,” writes Aisnof. In the best bios, the reader will come to the conclusion that the executive is exceptional based on the information presented rather than being told by the executive that he or she is great.”
The same goes for accomplishments. Aisnof urges, “These should be earthshaking, company-saving, award winning events supported by quantitative results where possible and be related to the interests of the targeted audience,” without disclosing sensitive corporate or client information.
Is this a board candidate bio?
If so, then Aisnof recommends including: any boards – including non-profit on which you already have served; reflecting any corporate, civic, or charitable-focused leadership roles that demonstrate ability to guide an organization; any awards especially outside your company that have recognized your accomplishments; and any media coverage, publications, or speaking appearances. Ask from the selection committee perspective: “What is the most important and differentiating contribution the executive would be making to the group?”
When embraced, managing your bio can be part of strategically managing your career advancement.
By Aimee Hansen