Why working less can help you get ahead and get in control of your work

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working from homeIn many organizations, there is a culture in which people brag about how many hours they work. Working so hard that you can barely keep your head above water is a badge of honor in those cultures. “How have you been?” is often followed with a confident and proud “Busy! I haven’t had a minute to catch my breath …” As women climb the ladders of success, this pressure to always work can get out of control. Many women also feel pressed to outdo their male counterparts, just to be competitive with them, making the problem even worse.

However, women do themselves a disservice by competing on sheer numbers of hours put in. On one level, it may be unhealthy – a recent study published in the Lancet shows working more than 55 hours a week is associated with a 1/3rd increased risk of stroke. On another level, working that long is actually counterproductive.

Working non-stop is a relic from the days when work needed far less creative and cognitive capacity. Working around the clock is based on a misguided attempt to maximize efficiency. If you’re dealing with a factory assembly line, you can increase output by eliminating any downtime – by making it more efficient. But human beings don’t work the same way. Eliminating downtime actually makes us less productive.

However, human beings can do something that machines can’t – we can have brief periods of fantastic productivity, when we set up the right mental and physiological conditions for it. In those brief times, just a couple of hours of excellent focus, we can get more of the truly important work done than if we had been wearing ourselves out by working around the clock.

Here are three of the science-based ways you can set up those conditions for brief periods of fantastic productivity, and in the process regain work-life balance:

  • There are times to skip something on your to-do list. Suppose you have a big client meeting in the afternoon and you have to win them over. You know that when you’re at your best, you’re in control and nothing can stop you. However, when you got to work this morning, there was a fire to put out, a ton of back emails, and a goals report due. So you stayed at your desk for hours getting it all out of the way before heading to your client meeting. It may have felt like an efficient use of time, but every time we make decisions – even unimportant ones – we fatigue our brain’s decision-making resources. So after a morning like this, you’re likely to walk into that client meeting unable to make quick decisions, and struggling to think about ideas that would be clear and easy for you, had you focused on refreshing your mental energy right before the meeting. Actually skipping something on your morning list, to give you 20 minutes of mental downtime right before the meeting can help you succeed at what actually matters, the client meeting.
  • The best way to stay focused for long periods is actually to let your mind wander when it needs to. Our brains’ attention systems are not designed for continual uninterrupted focus, but instead to tell us what’s changing. This is adaptive, and if your mind drifts every 15 or 20 minutes, that means everything is working as it should be. However, what you do when your mind drifts can have a big effect on how quickly you get back to work and how effective you are when you do. One option is to fight it. That will only backfire because you’re drifting for a reason, and it will keep happening. Most people will aim to take a break – something “useful” like checking email, or something fun like checking facebook or shopping. Doing so harms productivity in two ways. One is the obvious one, that it’s easy to get sucked in and lose a half hour or more. The other is counter-intuitive. All that information tracking blocks important background processes that can help us be more effective when we return to work. Rather than switching to something fun or useful, like shopping or email, when you let your mind wander – e.g. staring out the window, and wondering about the lives of people walking by – you create a mental scenario in which the brain can shift away from what it was focusing on, but in which there is not so much new information coming in that it takes too many cognitive resources. Mind wandering has been shown to improve creative problem solving for whatever you were working on before wandering, to help us sort out future plans, and to help us find ways to delay gratification. Just a few minutes of staring out the window can help your mind wander. And because it is somewhat boring, we tend to snap out of it after a few minutes. So you can get back to work far quicker than if you had gone online, and also be more effective when you return. So when your mind wants to wander, let it, and you’ll be back to work in minutes ready to stay focused and get through the work that matters most.
  • Use exercise as a productivity strategy. Most of the exercise advice out there is about the long-term benefits: look better, live longer, and so on. Those are nice things to have, but there’s no immediate reliable effect. It’s more of a long-term game. However, there is a totally different side to exercise that is seldom talked about, but for which there is a great deal of research. This is the short-term consequences. Moderate exercise (working up a little sweat, maybe 20 minutes on the treadmill) is a highly reliable way to reduce anxiety for the next few hours. If you need a reset in the middle of the day, there’s nothing like it to get you back into a mental space where it is easy to concentrate and easy to let the small stuff go that doesn’t matter. If you have an important and tough project, make moderate exercise part of your preparation for that project. You’ll be able to take a project that could have dragged on, and instead be far more present so you can bring your best mental energy to it.

Rather than simply aiming to put in as many hours as you can, you can get a leg up on the competition by setting yourself up for brief bursts of peak productivity.

I describe these and other science-based strategies to regain control of your work while increasing work-life balance in my new book, Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done.

Guest Contributed by New York NeuroLeadership Institute Research Director & NeuroCoach Josh Davis, Ph.D.

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Do you really need an Executive Coach?

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Do you really need an Executive Coach?

Image via Shutterstock

Are you getting the right amount of feedback? Do you have a career navigation plan? Do you know your levels of emotional intelligence? Do your values and how you want to live your life match up with your job demands? Are you stuck in the same old job? If you answer any of these questions with a no, then you should consider a coach.

There are many types of coaches and fit is everything so make sure you have an exploratory chat first. I would also say that there is a wide range of competency out there and many people just become coaches as they think they have “been there”, so perhaps review robustly what credentials and experience your potential coach has.

I used to be really cynical about Executive coaches until five years ago. I thought coaching was for “issue” employees or for resolving personality clashes between high performers and bosses. What I have come to realize ( and have become a coach myself with increased commitment to the highest levels of practice, learning and certification) is that coaching is life changing for many reasons and in my opinion the fastest way to empower women and all people on their professional advancement journey. Simply put, the right coach can do the following- help you understand yourself better ( personality) and what you want and then can help you understand all of this in the context of helping you to understand your behaviors. Does what you say you want, match what you are actually doing?

Organizational Psychology has taught me that those very behaviors that make or break any of us are interestingly caused in part by the environment we work in. The team and company “norms” and culture have a bigger role to play than perhaps any of us gives credit for. Understanding how to spot implicit norms with your coach and naming your triggers to some of your habits on a tough day at work is life enhancing.

Believe me, it is not just about the Myers Briggs or any other tool that tells you about yourself. You have to look at the big picture and the personalities in the game. Who gets to be in charge, who gets rewarded and what gets rewarded at your workplace? What gets tolerated? How do we do work around here?

So, if you are looking to go further and be happier, then consider an executive coach. It is hard to recognize you need one until you have one. I was the same way and I had an executive coach very early in my career and I still did not believe in the power of them – why? I had the wrong coach and the reasons that the company gave me the coach was conflict resolution based without involving the person who was in the conflict. Any good piece of psychology reading with tell you, or as your grandma would say, “ It takes two to tango” so no wonder coaching has a mixed reputation out there in the world.

For me, having a coach, helps me refine my thoughts and speak out loud about the realities of my strategies, and the truths about my hopes and dreams. For others, I provide an academic approach to sort out the next steps in their professional life and help with linear progression if that is what they want and if they don’t then we figure that out too. Good coaching keep you honest. Try it, and like everything in life, if you don’t find it useful then that is ok too!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach then please email nicki@theglasshammer.com and she will be happy to discuss your needs further.

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Mover and Shaker: Nupur Sharma, Manager, Accenture Consulting

Nupur Sharma“If you want something changed, you have to speak up and let people know. If you want to get involved in something new, or you’re looking to be more challenged, ask!” advises Accenture’s Nupur Sharma.“Great supervisors, mentors and counselors should ask if you are satisfied, challenged and maintaining balance in your career – however your leadership might not know what your career goals are unless you speak up, share them and ask to be involved.”

Sharma first learned about Accenture through a friend, who had joined the now more than 375,000 person company in the Midwest. She sold her on joining. “What hooked me with Accenture is its breadth of clients across industries and their work in the non-profit space. I was also attracted to the idea that there is no “typical” work day. You’re never bored at Accenture.

For Sharma, the diversity of work that Accenture affords its people differentiates a career there from “any other job I know.” According to Sharma, part of Accenture’s DNA is to “support its people in exploring their interests and opportunities and where they can excel within the company.”

Diversity of Career and Colleagues

Sharma began her career at Accenture nine years ago and she has been able to drastically change her job, the industry she focused on and the clients she served all whilst remaining at the same company. “Personally, I was drawn to Accenture because there is no typical work day here – it’s hard to be bored. The diversity of work you can do here differentiates itself from other careers. Accenture is very supportive in its people exploring different roles and pursuing personal interests and passions within the company,” she states.

She has worked with an incredibly diverse array of people at Accenture, such as Olympic athletes, authors, people who have run for office and those that have served our country and comments, “I’m constantly impressed with the caliber and diversity of people that our company attracts.” Plus, she notes, her sense of the company’s commitment to gender diversity has become stronger. The fact that Accenture was the first big consulting firm to publish its diversity demographics speaks volumes to its commitment to inclusion and diversity.”

Most recently Sharma worked with a major tech company to help them transform the way they do business by helping them improve their time to configure, price and quote.

“It’s really exciting. We are enabling companies to interact faster and more seamlessly with their customers and partners than ever before. More and more very established companies are willing to take leaps with us and innovate from their status quo.”

At Work, a Personal Passion

Sharma is passionate about the work she does at Accenture and is fortunate as the company always encourages her to pursue projects that excite her, in addition to the innovative projects she works on for clients. A great example of this is Sharma’s recent project to create the company’s new Augmented Reality App.

“Essentially, I was able to form a ‘mini-start up’ within Accenture by working to develop the company’s new Augmented Reality App. You point your phone at a specific item (a billboard, a t-shirt, a monument, etc.) that has been set up as a trigger and the photo/image comes alive with videos, interactive elements, links to websites, etc. I was able to get funding from my leadership team, find awesome developers, and build the app. I was really proud when the app was published in the Apple App Store and on Google play.”

She describes Augmented and Virtual Reality as among the top trends in consumer technology and that besides gaming and entertainment (such as Pokémon Go) she suggests that we will be seeing more AR in training, professional development, troubleshooting, geographical exploration, marketing and more. Sharma is proud of the work she has done at Accenture and comments, “I love that Accenture is not only experimenting with AR itself, but is on the leading edge by the work we’re doing for our clients to help them stay ahead. My goal is to one day be the company’s AR lead.”

Sharma is proud of her many professional achievements at Accenture but also of her involvement in Accenture’s non-profit work.
“One of the main reasons I joined Accenture nearly a decade ago was to eventually participate in Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), which delivers the power of Accenture’s global capabilities and experience to positively impact the lives of people in the developing world. Essentially, ADP applies the same expertise and capability that we employ at our clients, to non-profits and NGOs. It was amazing to work for the Catholic Relief Services NGO and implement an online financial system to replace their manual work. I’m thankful that Accenture supports non-profit work.”

Women in Technology

Sharma has always had an interest in technology and describes WIRED Magazine and TechCrunch as her bedtime reads. She is drawn to consumer technology as it has the biggest and most tangible impact on the lives of the average Jane/Joes and describes being able to influence that impact as being, “incredible.”

She believes it’s important to have more women in tech for the diversity of ideas that come from women being part of the conversation. “We bring different, fresh perspectives to the table and maybe even different ways of getting the job done. But I think it’s important to have diversity period, beyond gender. I see this at Accenture, working alongside people of many different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences, and how that diversity in people helps us deliver innovation.” says Sharma.

The Importance of Mentorship

Sponsorship and mentoring have played a very important role in Sharma’s career. She has benefitted from a ‘Career Counselor’, that all Accenture’s employees have access to, “I’ve had some great Career Counselors throughout my time at Accenture that have been my guiding light to help me advance and make the career choices that are best for me,” she states.

Sharma has also benefitted from organic mentors she has met along her journey and describes her mom as her biggest professional role model, “She emigrated from another country and maintained a work-life balance while raising three kids with my dad.”

Outside of Work

Outside of work Sharma loves being active, “I’ll do everything from yoga and dance to snowboarding and biking. I’m a certified yoga instructor and love teaching yoga to both coworkers and my students,” she says.

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Can Being Slightly Narcissist Help You Become a Leader?

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female leaderIn the past couple of years, there has been great emphasis on women being more confident in order to become more leaderlike so that they can be promoted to leadership positions. The ugly side of having confidence is being overly entitled and having narcissist tendencies, and this is something that is rarely discussed while looking at leaders of both genders. Are you or is your boss a narcissist?

It turns out that in general men are more narcissistic than women, according to a meta-analysis of 475,000 participants across three decades, which generated headlines running the gamut from The Huffington Post to Science Daily to The Daily Mail, and it did. As The Washington Post responded, “This surprises no one.”

But this isn’t about a battle of the sexes. With findings in hand, researcher Emily Grijalva, PhD, from the University of Buffalo School of Management and her co-authors crack open bigger questions about how our culture shapes people, shapes leadership, shapes outcomes. And how gender-disparate outcomes – playing out in your office and perhaps your career – reinforce the gender stereotypes creating them.

What makes you a narcissist?

The study that was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, examined over 350 journal articles, dissertations, manuscripts and technical manuals and analysed gender differences in three facets of narcissism across nearly half a million people and age groups. The researchers examined responses to statements designed to identify individual levels of each of these three aspects.

  • Entitlement/Exploitation (E/E) is the most maladaptive facet, correlated with negative behaviors and outcomes such as aggression and manipulation.
  • Illustrative questions: “I insist upon getting the respect that is due to me” and “I find it easy to manipulate people.”
  • Leadership/authority (L/A) – is the most adapative facet and reflects motivation for authority and desire for power.
  • Illustrative questions: “I would prefer to be a leader” and, “I like having authority over people.”
  • Grandiosity/Exhibitionism (G/E) – is tendencies of vanity, self-absorption, exhibitionism, and superiority.
  • Illustrative questions: “I really like to be the center of attention” and “I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so.”

Grijalva notes that because narcissism is associated with outcomes, examining gender differences in narcissism may help to explain gender disparity when it comes to women in leadership positions in Corporate America.

A little bit of Narcissism can help you in your career

“I think it’s best characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, believing you are more important and special than other people and being less empathetic to others,” author Grijalva says of narcissism in a video interview.

While it would be widely agreed that narcissism is not an attractive aspect of the human condition – cross-cultural fables after all tend to emphasize the perils- it still nets some positive individual outcomes.In fact, healthy or adaptive narcissism – the right aspects in the “right degree” – relate to positive well-being, confidence, self-sufficiency and even parenting.

“Narcissism is associated with various interpersonal dysfunctions, including an inability to maintain healthy long-term relationships, unethical behavior and aggression,” said author Grijalva.

“At the same time, narcissism is shown to boost self-esteem, emotional stability and the tendency to emerge as a leader.” She also points out that it’s associated with making a strong first impression and being perceived as charismatic.

The study found that men, across generations and regardless of age, consistently scored measurably higher than women in the first two categories of narcissism.

The widest gender gap was in the maladaptive facet of entitlement and exploitation.

According to the researchers,on average men, but of course not every man, are more likely to feel entitled to special privileges and be willing to exploit others to advance self-interest.

This is interesting since research has demonstrated that one impact of having women present on corporate boards is higher ethical and social compliance.

The second largest gap was in leadership and authority, where the researchers assert men demonstrated greater assertiveness and desire for power (for its sake) than women.

But when it came to grandiosity and exhibitionism, or traits like vanity and self-absorption, there was no gap between genders.

Messaging from a young age and the impact on stereotypes

Pulling on previous research, the study speculates the narcissism gap may be reflective of both biological and social differences, ingrained and self-fulfilling gender stereotypes. This means narcissism could be encouraged and developed in males, or punished and suppressed in females, through gender conditioning.

The researchers suggest societal “agentic” definitions of masculinity overlap with narcissism and societal “communal” definitions of femininity exclude it.

“Individuals tend to observe and learn gender roles from a young age, and may face backlash for deviating from society’s expectations,” Grijalva says. “In particular, women often receive harsh criticism for being aggressive or authoritative, which creates pressure for women, more so than for men, to suppress displays of narcissistic behavior.”

The researchers suggest it’s more socially acceptable for men to display “agentic characteristics” such as dominance and assertiveness, which reinforces more narcissistic personality tendencies, and also means they emerge as leaders.

This gender-disparate outcome self-perpetuates: men keep emerging as leaders, leadership traits continue to be male-associated, and more women continue to suppress their “agentic” sides to conform to gender expectations and avoid cultural backlash.

Society keeps looking at its face in the mirror, and seeing the same reflection.

Interestingly, the study also looked at college students from 1990-2013 and found no evidence that neither men nor women had become more or less narcissistic with time, letting the Millennial generation off the hook in this particular study- despite the rise in “selfies”.

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How Speaking Out Can Help Release Pressure

Women Speaking
As Thomas Carlyle once said, “No pressure, no diamonds.”

Indeed, pressure plays a vital role in life. It serves as an obstacle, a challenge that forces each one of us to improve, develop, and grow.

However, when you let pressure pile up unchecked and unanswered, it will cease being a challenge and start being a real problem that will inevitably take its toll on your body and mind.

Work is one of the many pressure-riddled aspects in a woman’s life. Uncooperative colleagues, office politics, supplier mixups, and clients that are difficult to deal with are just some of the common problems they usually face at work.

When you let these pressure build up at work, it will lead to performance issues and productivity slumps that will significantly hurt your chances at going up the corporate ladder or even worse, ruin your career.

It’s Time To Take Charge

Stop letting work pressure push you around. Most of the time, the cause of work pressure can be effectively handled at the onset by speaking out. Read on and find out six benefits of speaking out that can help release pressure at work and even discover ways to fast track your career:

Clear Communication is Essential at Work

From fostering great relationship with family and friends to dealing with coworkers and clients, clear communication is essential. It removes ambiguity and makes sure everyone is on the same page.

Speaking out imposes clear communication. It allows everyone to learn of your intent, issues, and suggestions clearly, which can lead to better resolutions or a great outcome. This is critical especially at work since a smooth-flowing operation heavily relies on details.

To avoid pressure due to work-related mistakes and misunderstandings, don’t deprive yourself of the opportunity to speak up.

Better Working Relationships

Sometimes, speaking out may mean you’re speaking for somebody else. Not everyone has the heart to speak out in fear of indirect backlash or being deemed brash and forceful by the people at the office. By speaking out, you’re effectively fostering a better work relationship with your colleagues. After all, friends make work a lot easier.

Some of the benefits of speaking out is how it injects a dose of confidence in your peers who are unable or unwilling to speak out for themselves. By being vocal about your thoughts, you’re subtly encouraging your work mates to speak out for themselves. The people at the office will eventually thank you, and love you, for it.

Great friendship and working relationship will help in reducing pressure in a significant way.

Respecting Yourself

Speaking out means you’re setting clear boundaries on what’s best for you, your career, and your health. Being honest is a great way to reassure yourself of the self-respect you deserve.

Remember, you can only handle so much. By speaking out and being honest about it, you’re boosting your self image, helping your career grow, and keeping your health from sliding down. Even better, speaking out makes people respect you. It’s one of the great benefits of communication at work. A person who knows his abilities, limitations and knows how to assert himself is a person that will be admired and respected by everybody.

Speaking out saves you from a self-imposed pressure brought by being silent.

Silence May Means ‘Yes’

Failing to speak up may lead to manipulative bosses and opportunistic colleagues who are assuming that you’re agreeing to what could be unreasonable demands and demeaning proposals.

By keeping your mouth shut, you’re allowing these people to have their way without any semblance of resistance, which may lead to them repeating their behavior over and over until your body can’t keep up anymore and your career suffers.

Speaking up puts a stop on their untoward work behavior and release pressure at work.

Show Passion and Concern

Speaking shows your passion and concern towards work. Speaking out shows that you care enough to voice out your thoughts on the matter at hand.

People who appreciate passion isn’t confined inside the four corners of the office, passion gets the attention of senior executives.

Passion speaks volumes, it shows in your actions and it resonates among colleagues. It motivates them.

Speaking up brings out this dormant passion out.

A big bonus: communicating clearly for faster promotion is definitely a great idea. Getting promoted will essentially handle most of your finance-related pressure as well. A win-win for you and your workplace.

Keep Everyone Informed

There are a lot of unnoticed work issues that requires a person empathic enough to speak out and alert everybody of the problem before it goes out of hand.

This maybe a faulty machine, an operations loophole, or ill-will among colleagues. By refusing to speak out, you’re effectively letting this problem continue until it becomes a costly and difficult situation to handle. Turning a blind eye will only incur grudge from people and might treat you like you’re the one who instigated the problem in the first place.

This kind of pressure is avoidable and something you don’t deserve.

Put an End to Work-related Pressure Once and For All
Most of the problems at work can be attributed to poor communication. By speaking out, you’re reducing pressure at work that can gnaw and haunt your career if you left it unaddressed. One of the benefits of communication at work is that it eases up the work process and keeps everyone on good terms at the same time. Keeping this up means you’re keeping the pressure down.

Considering that half of our lives will be spent at work and with workmates, it’s necessary that you deal with work-related problems and find ways to release pressure at work as soon as you can.

Speak out.

Let your voice be heard.

Let your intentions be known.

That’s how you achieve clear and effective communication.

That’s how you can release pressure.

Guest contributed by Jona Jones

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Leadership: How to be authentic at work and why sincerity can hinder that

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thought-leadershipBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

The trouble with “authenticity” in the workplace is that there are many definitions of what being authentic is and in reality we are often defined by the role we play. There are two types of roles and the first and most tangible is the task role we have at work, literally the duties we have to deploy to get paid. The second type of role is deeper and more or less mandated formally. It is the psychological role we are given or that we take up willingly due to gender stereotypes. Look around your office, who buys the birthday cards? (the person who plays the office “mom” or “wife” usually is a woman and often works in HR). Who gets given the important tasks etc? I have written many times about the fact that by default and in aggregate men are given the mantle of being viewed leader-like (these are men as a concept not actual individual men that we know,I may add). If there are 8 major traits to being a leader such as competence and productivity, then why do we assume that straight white men just automatically have them?

Since this post is part two of me telling you to read Herminia Ibarra’s book “ Act Like A Leader, Think Like a Leader”, let us look at how you can show up authentically but strike the right balance of being authoritative when needed with the right amount of gravitas whilst still being seen as human.

So, How do you show up as when you are supposedly just being you? Stanford psychologist, Hazel Markus showed that people’s identities are based just as much on future possibilities as they are on formative past and present states. Why does sincerity matter? And when is too much sincerity a bad thing? When you can not possibly do everything you say you will and still be productive or when you have to disclose every detail of the business plan leaving no room for executive flexibility and reducing our credibility in the process.

I have taught courses on being authentic as it pertains to being in alignment with your values and purpose. This too is something that Herminia Ibarra comments is open to then providing a free range of behaviors that allows for flexibility and adaptability. This is optimal as it allows us to have emotional intelligence (EQ), to be chameleon like when we need to but without losing ourselves.

Sounds good, right? Without this ‘reading the room’ piece all of us are totally at the mercy of our personalities which are fairly fixed and intrinsic. I am a believer in Lewin’s theory- that our behaviors are a product of the perfect storm of our personality and our environment that we operated in. So, on those bad ‘back against the wall’ days at work, we have to be able to modulate our reactions and the most eccentric, confrontational and bold amongst us will suffer in most teams far more than the passive aggressive folks as that sadly is totally normal in many corporate cultures today.

When I was at Columbia university studying the topic of leadership, the faculty repeated time and time again that it is really important if you are a leader to have followers and without them you are just a person who has your name on the corner office. Even if you are not yet at the corner office the same rings true. So, “Fake it til you make it” as the popular saying goes, but “make sure you make it” is the part I feel needs to be added.

You can do it!!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career then please contact nicki@theglasshammer.com who will be happy to discuss things further

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Voice of Experience: Xing Zhou, Diversity & Inclusion Leader, PwC China

You can fulfill your dreams in your work life and also enjoy your family life.

Voice of Experience- Xing Zhou, Diversity & Inclusion Leader, PwCThat’s the message that PwC China’s Xing Zhou works hard to impart to her female staff members. “I view it as an achievement that as the mom of two children, I am able to find the balance and can serve as a role model for others in my firm and industry,” she says.

Zhou began her career with the Central Bank of China where she spent three years before deciding on a career change that took her to PwC in Shanghai. She soon was offered the opportunity to work in the New York office where she was promoted to manager before returning to her hometown of Beijing.

For the past 14 years she has worked with PwC in Beijing. Zhou is currently the insurance industry leader for PwC China where she oversees all the services they provide to the insurance industry, including audit, consulting and tax.

Since insurance is a relatively new industry in China, Zhou says it has been gratifying to watch the discipline mature over the past 14 years and see the contributions that PwC’s team has made to its growth, as they work with regulators and key market players to introduce best practices from the firm’s expertise overseas.

Going for the Gold

Recently, Zhou participated in one of her most exciting professional obligations to date: She was chosen to be part of the eight-person delegation that represented Beijing’s winning bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics. She participated as the financial expert on the committee, collaborating with many top dignitaries, including the Vice Prime Minister of China and Mayor of Beijing.

“To have all these accomplished people respect my professional expertise in finance provided an incredible amount of satisfaction, to have my many years of hard work acknowledged,” she says.

Participating in the committee was also rewarding because it reinforced that she was able to take on any challenge, even something outside of her comfort zone. “Each success like this builds your confidence,” she notes.

Promoting Diversity from Different Angles

Zhou says that the concept of diversity is newer in China and Hong Kong than in the western world, and was largely introduced by global companies such as PwC. While gender diversity is important to ensure that female employees have equal opportunities for promotions and upward mobility, she says that China’s culture, which encourages women to work outside the home, makes it easier to balance men’s and women’s roles.

However, there are two new areas where they are shining the diversity spotlight. The first is on cultural diversity, where teams of people from mainland China, Hong Kong and expatriates are learning to work together and value the viewpoints and contributions of disparate groups.

In addition, they are increasingly encountering generational diversity from younger colleagues, as well as younger clients due to the many new start-up firms that seek their services.

As Diversity Leader for PwC China/HK, Zhou’s core focus is to create an inclusive working environment. She acknowledges that’s easier to talk about than to create, so she says that it’s important to make sure that diversity is part of the strategy of the firm.

One way they encourage diversity is through recruiting, by intentionally making sure that they seek a diverse pool of candidates, which includes bringing folks together from mainland China and Hong Kong as well as expatriates. As a consequence, the advisory team stands to benefit from a plurality of talent.

Then they have a three-pronged strategy to ensure the concept infiltrates throughout the firm.

First, PwC makes sure everyone understands the issue by providing mandatory training to leaders on unconscious bias; then they share those lessons with the rest of the workforce; and finally they intentionally monitor it via KPIs.

Work/Life Balance Challenges

The biggest challenge that Zhou finds Chinese women face is pressure from their families – from husbands through in-laws – to work less. She feels part of that stems from the traditional one-child policy, which put the sole family focus on caring for one baby.

She hears from her employees that sometimes their families assume their focus will shift from their work to their child when they become mothers.

“When my staff members come to me and say that they feel pressured, I ask them, ‘What do you want?’ I remind them that being a mother brings life changes, but that they remain the same person they always have been,” she says, adding that everyone has their own specific goals; some may choose to dedicate most of their time at home, while others may elect to continue working.

“Each person has to look inside themselves and make their own choice without feeling pressure from family members, and then ask them to support that choice,” she asserts.

She also finds that global mobility for women is a growing area of focus. While PwC has a mature global mobility strategy, it’s become a hot topic for many Chinese companies that have started to globalize their businesses, but don’t yet have policies in place. PwC has been instrumental in sharing best practices, having recently published a thought leadership paper on moving women with purpose.

Part of the reason that women don’t go overseas from China as frequently is that few companies have formal policies in place, and often there is no mechanism to survey them to assess their interest. Interestingly, she says that when PwC surveys its employees, 70 percent of them express interest in an overseas assignment. From there, the key concern is the career path after they return.

Maintaining Work/Life Balance in Her Own Life

Zhou values her work/life balance and appreciates the support she receives from her parents and in-laws, but most of all her husband. As a doctor, he understands the professional challenges she faces and the two of them are able to support one another’s struggles and schedules.

Weekends are family time – even when there is work to be done. Her children love to join her at the office, where they can draw on the whiteboards and find other ways to amuse themselves. She encourage her staff to bring their children in as needed, also.

Finally, her family plans plenty of outside activities from skiing to weekly art lessons they take together. And, she adds, she loves to cook, a hobby that her family can enjoy also.

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Why Being a Working Mom is Good for Your Children, Not to Mention Gender Equality

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Working motherAt work, or on your way? You may be helping your daughter’s professional future (and we’re not just talking college fund) or improving gender equality in your son’s future household.

As part of their new Gender Initiative, which seeks to “change the conversation around gender and work”, Harvard Business School released a study of over 30,000 adults across 24 countries which explored how having a working mother as a child affects educational, economic, and social outcomes as an adult. A working mother was defined as a mom that ever worked (part-time, full-time, etc) outside of the house before her child (the survey participant) was 14 years old.

Across the 24 countries, daughters of working mothers grew up to be more likely to have completed more years of education, to be employed, to be in supervisory roles, and earn higher incomes than daughters of non-working mothers. Sons of working mothers grew up to spend more time on household chores and taking care of family members than sons of non-working mothers.

Particularly, daughters of working moms in the USA have half a year more education, are 36% more likely to have a supervisory role (33.4% v 24.6%), and earn 23% more ($35.5K vs $28.9K average) than daughters of non-working moms. Sons of working moms spent 7 more hours caring for family members and 15 minutes more housework compared to sons of non-working moms.

According to lead researcher Dr. Kathleen McGinn, “This is as close to a silver bullet as you can find in terms of helping reduce gender inequalities, both in the workplace and at home.”

The Impact of Alternative Parental Role Models

Exposure to role models is critical for women in the workplace, in order to be able to envision yourself in a role which otherwise might not seem accessible. The working mom effect also comes down to alternative role modeling, the opening of possibilities around roles and responsibilities.

The researchers were not concerned about the nature or intensity of a working mom’s work, whether it was full-time or part-time, but rather simply how it played out when children were exposed to “a role model who showed you that women work both inside and outside the home.”

According to McGinn, “What it’s about is modeling alternatives for your children, letting them see that there are multiple roles that women can play and multiple roles that men can play in their lives at work and lives at home.” As the study showed, experiencing alternative role models that “aren’t constrained by really tight gender stereotypes” had different impacts for daughters and sons.

“What daughters of working moms see is that it’s okay to go to work, it’s completely normal, that’s something that women do,” said McGinn. “Sons see something really different and that is everybody has to pitch in here. There’s no good way to maintain a management of a life outside of the home and a life at home unless everybody at home is working together.” Previous research has shown that sons of working moms are also more likely to be married to working women.

McGinn told the Washington Post, “…working moms are affecting their children’s gender attitudes. They’re affecting the way they think about what’s appropriate behavior. And those gender attitudes in turn are affecting outcomes.”

Underlining the point, she says, “There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother.”

No One Path For Parenting

According to McGinn, “There’s very, very little research suggesting that being raised by a working mom is bad for kids. I think that’s something we harbor.” It appears we do, and it’s exactly these notions that the research hopes to dispel.

A previous Pew survey found that while 34% of working moms felt increasing numbers of working moms were good for society, an equal 34% felt it was bad, and a further 31% felt neutral about it.When you look at the total population, negativity towards working moms gets stronger (41%), showing the influence of a strong societal belief. But when asking all adults this question, respondents with a working mom were less negative than those without.

Mothers who work full-time are also likely to be hardest on themselves when rating their own parenting, only 28% rating themselves as a 9/10 (about same as dads at 26%) versus 41% of part-time workings moms and 43% of non-working moms.

As Gender Initiative director Robin Ely points out, “So much of what people think they know about gender is simply not substantiated by empirical evidence but instead is informed by gender stereotypes.” The objective of the initiative is to break the conversation from the stereotypes.

In the HBS study, working mothers actually spent equal time caring for their children.A meta-analysis has shown that children of working mothers have less depression and anxiety and recent research found that quantity of time with children between ages 3 and 11 matters less than the quality of your presence when you’re with your children.

McGinn is quick to point out that this doesn’t mean moms should work, just that there are benefits to alternative role modeling which go against societal preconceptions.

“There’s a lot of parental guilt about having both parents working outside the home,” McGinn says. “But what this research says to us is that not only are you helping your family economically—and helping yourself professionally and emotionally if you have a job you love—but you’re also helping your kids. So I think for both mothers and for fathers, working both inside and outside the home gives your kids a signal that contributions at home and at work are equally valuable, for both men and women. In short, it’s good for your kids.”

Ultimately, it’s up to every family and every woman to make their own decisions about what is right for them and not based on societal ideas of what’s right for all families, all women, or all children.

No such “right” exists.

By Aimee Hansen

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Do women want to be CEO? Or is their goal thwarted by incongruous perceptions?

business-race-women-and-men-in-officeWhat is stopping women from reaching the highest echelons of management and leadership in the corporate world? Is it about systemic barriers preventing females from advancing?

Yes, in part, as there are visible and less visible organizational mechanisms that can prevent women from excelling based solely on the fact that they are women. An example of this is the performance review research that we explore in this article. There is also a misunderstanding of what power is and how it can encumber a woman’s pursuit of leadership more than it would for a male colleague. Do women simply not understand the rewards? Are we told not to expect them as quickly or ever? Is the unlevel playing field too exhausting? Or do we simply not want it enough?

Systemic Hinderances – Bias in the Humans Means Bias in the System

A study by Kieran Synder produced some interesting findings. It was based on 248 reviews that she gathered from 180 people— 105 men and 75 women. The reviews came from 28 different companies and included large technology corporations, mid-size companies, and smaller environments. Snyder’s objective was to determine the correlation between gender and negative feedback. Corporate evaluations of this type are generally considered a platform for constructive criticism that can help a professional grow and become more productive. But how “constructive” is a biased assessment? Snyder’s study revealed that reviews for women were far more likely to contain acrimonious evaluations and caustic notes about personality flaws. While both men and women were given suggestions that could be considered constructive, it was primarily women who were told to change their ways. The findings were the same whether the reviewing manager was male or female.

Snyder details 83 critical reviews received by men. Only 2 had comments about the professional’s personality. However, the 94 critical reviews of female professionals contained 71 negative personality comments. The upshot of the findings is that while 76% of the females had been assigned traits by their assessor that were perceived as “personality flaws” those same traits were ignored (and possibly seen as a positive) in male counterparts since only 2.4% of males “personality” were even commented on in the reviews.

What Women Want

Melinda Marshall is the co-author of the report, from the Center of Talent Innovation, “Women Want Five Things.” Her extensive research on women in the 35-50 age range revealed a dip in their aspiration for more power despite the key finding that it is power that enables women to achieve what they want.

There is an incongruous perception amongst women who are at the peak of their careers regarding power. Their viewpoint is that the burden of an authoritative position outweighs the benefits. This perspective is shared by 60% of the women surveyed in the U.S., 65 % of women in the U.K., and 49% of women in Germany.

It is not that they lack proper ambition and qualification. Rather, it is that these women do not see executive roles as a viable means of achieving what they are really after: “the ability to flourish, a way of reaching for meaning and purpose, and the desire to excel, empower others, and be empowered.”

Though corporate goals for both genders are similar, the motivation among female professionals is waning. They simply cannot see how the value of having a top position warrants the struggle necessary to reach and maintain it.

Marshall concluded that “Sometimes women do not have clear goals, early mentorship and sponsorship by women leaders who can make a difference.” By making an effort to single out promising women and encouraging early positive dialogue, corporations can aid in developing female executive talent before aspiration begins to dwindle.

In addition to identifying the value proposition of women with leadership potential, Women Want Five Things contrasts the “realities” of holding a powerful position with the “female expectations” of having a powerful position. Instead of regarding power as something that will hold them back from reaching their five point value proposition, women can begin to view leadership as a positive force that can help them achieve their goals. Marshall explains the equivocation many females have about attaining power. They may hear and focus on the guilt a female leader experiences after having made personal sacrifices, and they conclude that reaching for the top is simply not worth the effort. However, when women are able to see that their value proposition will be fulfilled with a position of power, they are compelled to strive for success.

Nicki Gilmour, organizational psychologist and CEO of theglasshammer.com comments “Power and authority dynamics are at the very heart of the diversity question. Women and men often have similar corporate goals, and it is rarely discussed that men should be anything else but successful at work which is a huge disservice to both sexes since some men just like some women just aren’t that ambitious. It is, however, but the constant scrutiny of female executives’ behavior along with the systemic hindrances that are built into the system historically that continues to define what leadership traits look like. The incongruence lies here not with the individual’s desire for power since with every other message women are given throughout their life on how to be is very misaligned with traditional ideas of how an executive should act, therefore being it less appealing.”

By Kathleen Delaney

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Leadership – How to develop yourself to be the leader you need and want to be | Part one

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female leaderBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

One of my favorite books on leadership and women at work generally is called “Act Like A Leader, Think Like a Leader” written by one of my most admired academics, Herminia Ibarra from INSEAD. Why I like her book so much is that it is practical yet deeply rooted in a subject her and I both have passion for. What is that? Organizational learning and leadership development work.

In fact, one of her sub chapters in the book on how to be a great leader is called,”Steal Like An Artist”. She states that nothing is original and we have to stand on the shoulders of giants to keep evolved concepts and ideas. True to that, the book itself encompasses many of the best theories from other top academics so you get to read it all on one place as well as read Herminia’s insights which I think are top notch. So since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am going to endorse and share with you over the next two weeks in this column what Ms. Ibarra has to say on being more of a leader, being authentic as a leader and finally ensuring you want to be one.

Let’s start with looking at a self-assessment from her book – do you want to step up? Are you in a career building period? Or a career maintenance or a even a career transitioning period? Note: people come to me to be coached in any of these three stages.

Answer the questions with a yes or a no.

Have you been in the same job or career path for at least seven years?
Do you find yourself restless professionally?
Do you find your job more draining than energizing?
Do you resent not having more time for outside interests or family?
Do you have a changing family configuration that will allow you to explore other options?
Are you admiring folks around you who are making big changes?
Has your work lost some meaning for you?
Do you find that your career ambitions are changing?
Recent events have left me appraising what I really want?
Do you find your enthusiam has waned for your work projects?

If you answered yes to 6-10 statements then you could already be deeply in a career-transitioning period. Make time to reflect on your goals and see if your life goals are evolving also.

If you answered yes 3-5 times then you may be entering a career-transitioning period. Work to increase insights and “outsights” which are new horizons that appear from doing new things and meeting new people.

If you got 2 or less yeses then you are more likely to be in a career-building period in your current job so you are busy working on developing within that role, team or firm.

Ultimately, people often go for bigger jobs when they feel the excitement wane, so if that’s the case, let’s see how we can help you get what you want at work!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career the contact nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation chat.

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