Refusing to Provide Salary History Information During Job Interviews

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By Ken Levine, Esq., Bailey Duquette P.C., New York, New York

 

job interview

 
 Potential employers routinely ask for an applicant’s current salary before making an offer.  The practice arguably perpetuates gender pay disparity, since an unfairly low salary at one company will then have an “anchoring effect” and lead to a lower salary at the next job, continuing the systemic bias.  Many women who also take time off from work to care for children re-enter the workforce at a lower salary, and similarly run the risk of being stuck at a lower salary rung at subsequent jobs.
 
Employers are already prohibited by federal and state laws from compensating men and women at different rates for the same work, and women can sue if they experience wage disparity in violation of those laws.  But reliance on salary history may still perpetuate the gender disparity, even if not done for overtly sexist reasons.   
 
In an effort to ensure pay equity for women, Massachusetts, Philadelphia and New York City have all recently passed laws to restrict salary history questions, and other states, including Illinois, New Jersey, Maine, California, and Vermont, are considering similar measures. The New York City law prohibits employers or their agents from inquiring about the salary history of an applicant, whether male or female, and restricts an employer’s ability to rely upon salary history in determining compensation during the hiring process, even if the employer finds the information through lawful publicly-available sources.  The New York City law allows an employer to discuss with an applicant his or her expected salary, salary range and benefits.  A prospective employer is also allowed to consider salary history if the applicant “voluntarily and without prompting” discloses the information.  The law does not apply to internal promotions. 
 
No state or city laws are currently in effect. Philadelphia‘s ordinance was scheduled to take effect on May 23, 2017, but a federal court stayed its effectiveness pending a legal challenge on first amendment grounds. The New York City legislation will take effect on October 31, 2017, and the Massachusetts law, passed last summer, will take effect on July 1, 2018, unless either of them faces similar legal challenges.  Several government agencies also prohibit inquiry into salary history for the same reasons.
 
The new laws can serve to embolden women to withhold their current salary information during contract negotiations.   Women (and men) can credibly argue that not relying on salary history requires employers to make clear, market-based decisions about pay.  Some head hunters in fact actively advise all clients not to reveal current salary for this very reason, even when pressured to do so.  The issue is especially relevant for women who have taken time off from work to care for children.  Citing to these new laws and policies, even if not currently legally binding on prospective employers, can serve as sound justification for withholding salary history information during employment negotiations. 
 
 
Ken Levine is a commercial litigator and general corporate adviser.

 

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Laid Off? Do Not Get Derailed

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By Nicki Gilmour Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

At some point in your career, you will probably get laid off due to many factors that are usually beyond your control like downsizing, mergers and acquisitions and cyclical market turns in financial services. Do not take it personally! Hard advice if you have given the job 110% of your time and energy and have shown a loyalty that you perceive has not been returned.

Often people come to coaching at this point threatening to leave their industry and wanting to transfer their skills and make a pivot. My job as a coach is to help my client really have an honest look at what is going on- beyond the hurt and the emotion to see if they are truly done with their sector and not just their firm.

Sometimes, after testing the reasoning around why you might want to leave, the answer is then yes and we set about working out a plan on how to transition into the right job in the right firm in the right industry.

Sometimes however, doing the deep work results in you realizing that you love doing the tasks that you were doing, in the industry that you know and love and it was just the shock of being laid off or being somehow displaced in a shuffle that has made you feel resentful, done or stuck. In some cases, people have even taken another job only to find that they want back in. All scenarios are valid and none are really that bad when you have a little perspective. My job is to get you to where you truly want to be. We work out the destination and then figure out the journey together in a way that will get you there. The worst that can happen is that you took a small detour, or maybe you will find that a new destination is what you wanted all along.

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Mover and Shaker: Yuko Ikeda, Vice President, Senior Human Resources Generalist, Voya Investment Management

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yuko ikedaBy Cathie Ericson

Yuko Ikeda carries with her the image of a young woman navigating the streets of New York, holding a tote bag emblazoned with the words “Carry yourself with the confidence of a man.”

To her that is the epitome of what will help women succeed in the workplace. “I believe some women create their own barriers by underestimating their abilities and waiting too long to grab opportunities,” she says. “Also, projecting confidence is a big part of advancing your career. Generally, men do this better than women.”

This is why she advises young women to work hard, but effectively, and with a purpose. “Be smart by having a keen focus on the big picture,” she says. “You have to understand your business and how your company makes money, and then develop a line of sight to how you connect to that and how you can contribute. Volunteer to fill gaps and look around to find ways to help the team succeed with the interests of the firm at heart.”

She recalls the words of one of her sources of inspiration, General Electric’s Jack Welch, who reminds people to “Control your destiny or someone else will.”

“While hard work is only the ticket to entry, high performance will broaden your choices since people are watching and will offer you new opportunities,” says Yuko.

Creating Her Own Success

Ikeda has seen that philosophy at work as she has created her own HR trajectory.

Born and raised in Japan, Ikeda started her career in the Tokyo human resource offices of American companies. Her first stint was with semiconductor firm General Instruments; since they didn’t have an official HR department, she describes her three years there as a time of self-learning, where she attended seminars and read books to understand HR theories and best practices. She was fortunate to have a great mentor who guided her throughout her time there, which demonstrated the importance of having mentors in your life. After that valuable experience, she developed relationships with two other life mentors later in her career – one Japanese and one American – who became indispensable in her personal development which she cherishes to this day.

During her tenure, she built the infrastructure they needed, implementing various processes such as customized performance reviews, all without formal training. “It was like creating my own business school curriculum where I would apply theories and make them practical,” she says.

Thanks to her active participation in one particular seminar she attended, she was noticed by GE Capital and recruited there, an important move considering GE is known as a luminary and trailblazer in the HR field. Their well-established HR function helped propel her to the next phase of her career. “It was like drinking from a fire hose,” she says.

She was offered to be on GE’s “HR Leadership Program (HRLP)”, a program designed to help develop and nurture the leadership pipeline at GE . She rotated through stretch assignments and global seminars during the two-year program, giving her career an enormous boost. At the end of the program, she was assigned to be head of recruitment, leading a group of older team members, many of them male. She quickly found that not all of them felt comfortable being managed by a younger female, which ultimately offered another step in her growth.

When AIG acquired one of the units, Ikeda was chosen to be the head of Japan human resources for their asset management arm, AIG Global Investment Group. This opportunity constituted a major promotion which she held for four years. At the time she was reporting to the global head of human resources who asked her in 2008 if she would be interested in a newly created global HR Generalist role based out of the New York office. In this new role, Ikeda partnered with the equities, fixed income and business development teams on a global basis. A month later, the AIG meltdown occurred, which expanded her responsibilities to include leading the HR effort on the separation and divestiture activities. This gave her invaluable experience with change management and navigating through uncertainties.

Five years ago, she moved to Voya Investment Management, working with various investment platforms as a senior HR generalist. She is currently leading the talent review process, where the senior leadership team comes together for a full day to discuss succession planning as well as identifying emerging talent for Voya’s future leadership pipeline and building bench strength. “We are entrusted with people’s money, so it’s vital to have a strong succession plan in place to ensure our clients remain our focus and their money we are entrusted with has the best talent overseeing it.”

A key part of that is talent retention; she is proud that Voya Investment Management is routinely named one of the best places to work, which reflects well on its culture and provides an important differentiator in a saturated industry.

“Our focus on culture and talent development not only leads to better company performance but also provides a competitive edge,” she notes. “When we are in the finals or part of a due diligence process, we may be competing against companies with similarly strong performance and competitive fees, so we believe that culture is increasingly becoming a key decision factor.”

Being Mindful Can Help Reduce Unconscious Bias

Ikeda believes it’s important to be mindful for two key reasons. “One, it helps you grow – the more conscious and focused you are on the moving parts, the more you see the connections between the tasks you are busy fulfilling, as opposed to being on auto pilot.”

Secondly, she says that being mindful will allow professionals to see deeper into unconscious bias to help identify it and make an effort to explore with curiosity how to address it. “This concept has been increasingly a part of our conversation, and we have to deepen our understanding of why it happens, which is the only way we can work toward changing it.”

She believes that it’s important for professionals to choose a company that is consciously making an effort in diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as Voya is with the women’s network and various other programs of which she is a part.

When not helping improve HR at Voya, Ikeda enjoys traveling with her life partner, particularly seeking out experiences where she can be in nature. “It gives me perspective in life and renews the energy I bring to my work,” she says.

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The Girl With The Draggin’ W-2

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By theglasshammer team

pay gap

Image via Shutterstock

Wells Fargo Securities’ Economics Department recently released a report entitled, The Girl with the Draggin’ W-2, which explores the complexities of the gender pay gap. Following publication, we received many questions from interested readers. Diane Schumaker-Krieg, Global Head of Research, Economics, & Strategy for Wells Fargo Securities, responds to these questions below.

  • What were the most surprising results of the study?

Despite huge advances in technology and the ability to work remotely, the highest paying jobs continue to reward those who can work the longest and least flexible hours. Physically showing up at the office (or wherever you’re required to be) is still a prerequisite for getting ahead. And that puts primary caregivers — usually working moms — at a disadvantage.

  • Why haven’t we closed the gender gap? Why has progress stalled? Because society hasn’t fully accepted that fixing the problem for women means we also have to fix the problem for men. Both men and women need greater flexibility in their lives. Yet, it is still difficult for men to tell their employers they need time off to take their child to the doctor or to tell new acquaintances at a barbecue that they’re stay-at-home dads. Until these evolving realities are more socially accepted, the costs/burdens will fall on women. Some of the most successful women in our Research division have spouses that are full-time dads. In fact, Jodi Kantor of The New York Times wrote an insightful piece a couple of years ago, “Wall Street Mothers, Stay- Home Fathers” that features three senior women in my department.
  • Given that female enrollment in college is surpassing that of men, why aren’t we seeing increased pay parity?

Actually we are. The wage gap would be six percent higher if women were not out-achieving men educationally. But women are more likely than men to major in fields that pay less upon graduation — for example, education and social work versus computer science and engineering.

  • Talk about the role that cultural and societal expectations play. Is part of the problem that women don’t advocate for themselves or seek out sponsors? What remains unexplained about the gender pay gap?

Not advocating for oneself forcefully enough is certainly a factor. A well-known Carnegie Mellon study showed that men are four times more likely than women to ask for a raise and when women do ask, they typically request 30 percent less than men. This may be rational because women are viewed more negatively for asking! Of course, if you don’t ask, the answer is always “no.”

  • Another factor is women’s tolerance for risk and failure. There are many studies showing that men will apply for a job if they meet just 60 percent of the qualifications, while women feel they need to be 100 percent qualified. This fear of failure is a big factor holding women back.

And women tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored. Mentors can be great sounding boards, but their influence on one’s career trajectory often ends with advice. On the other hand, sponsors tend to be senior executives who can publically advocate on behalf of their protégés and accelerate their advancement. Women are 50 percent less likely than men to have a sponsor.

Finally, women often don’t get the benefit of honest performance feedback because male managers are reluctant to provide it, fearing an “emotional response” or risk to their own careers.

  • Are there specific industries that perpetuate stereotypes and gender barriers?

I I have worked on Wall Street for most of my career, and it has certainly gotten a lot better, especially on the trading floor. But overall, hard-charging occupations like investment banking, private equity, venture capital and M&A are more difficult for anyone, not just women, who need more flexibility. One of the advantages of working in Research is that while there is a great deal of travel and frequent client dinners, there is no penalty for writing a research report at your kitchen table at 3 A.M. So even within hard-charging occupations, there are opportunities for flexibility.

  • What is the economic reasoning behind closing the gender gap?

Greater labor force participation — many women are now on the sidelines because after factoring in the cost of childcare (which has grown more than twice as fast as median household income), for many, it doesn’t pay to work. A McKinsey Global Institute study indicated that full gender equality could add 11% to 26% to global GDP by 2025 — a staggering $12 to $28 trillion. One positive factor is women returning to the workforce and working late into their 60’s and even 70’s. Nearly 30 percent of women aged 65-69 are working (up from 15 percent in the late 80’s).

  • How can businesses benefit from closing the gender pay gap? Do you think corporations are realizing this?

For businesses, closing the gender pay gap would not only attract more women but just as importantly help businesses retain the high-caliber women they already have by making it more economical for working moms to stay in the game. And of course there are countless studies showing that more diverse companies simply perform better — higher ROE, higher sales growth and stronger corporate oversight. That’s because they’re tapping into a deeper pool of talent that mirrors the diversity of their customers and discourages groupthink.

  • Are there any policy solutions — either in the legislative or private sector that would help to move the needle forward?

On the legislative front, I think it’s very interesting that the state of Massachusetts now makes it illegal to ask a job applicant about their prior compensation. This could be a huge step forward, since women are generally paid less and asking for prior compensation perpetuates the wage gap.

In the UK, companies with 250 or more employees must publish their gender pay gaps within the next year under a new legal requirement and will be encouraged to detail an action plan to address inequities.

In the private sector, shareholders can and should hold companies accountable. In fact, nine tech companies were asked by shareholders to study compensation and commit to closing the pay gap. Several of them publicly made commitments to do so. Amazon, Apple and Intel have reported that they’re near 100 percent pay parity.8

Diane Schumaker-Krieg is Global Head of Research, Economics and Strategy and leads all fundamental research across all sectors and asset classes for Wells Fargo.

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Fear of Change and Other Mental Models That Hold Us Back

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Nicki-Gilmour-bioBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Last week, we spoke about how expanding your mindset can truly take perspective mentally and not be beholden to your home-grown beliefs, paradigms and basically anything that your granny and society told you that you had to think, act and feel. We talked about the more we can move things from purely subjective to being an object then we can be more open to working with new ideas. I describe this to my clients using the glass half full/glass half empty adage, if you reframe it to an object, let’s face it, it is just a glass with some liquid in it and you don’t have to have any feelings around that at all.

Nearly all of us show courage at work and life. Nearly all of us have fears. Those fears are often deeply rooted in paradigms and mental models that we hold that play out in our “inner theater” telling us we could fail, we could lose something, we could look silly (amongst many other things.)

How do you take these anxiety ridden based on nothing assumptions and recognize them as the Gremlins that they are? They are present to sabotage your ability to take the next step and embrace whatever comes with that change?

Kegan and Lahey in their brilliant book “Immunity to Change” offer actual exercises on how to understand what your worries are and how they are often competing commitments to your main objective. For example, you might be keen on delegating more but find that you ultimately want things done your way; making your goal harder to reach.

It is the assumptions (those built in paradigms) that create these competing unconscious and conscious thoughts and behaviors. By surfacing and testing your assumptions – such as what it is that makes you assume that your way is best, you can make real progress towards growing, succeeding and leading!

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Voice of Experience: Lye-Sim Lam, Partner, Asset Management Practice, PwC US

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By Cathie Ericsonvoice of experience

Success comes from your forging your own organic, authentic interactions and experiences, rather than just from conventional networks, says PwC Partner Lye-Sim Lam.

“I have thrived and learned to be resourceful and adapt to many different cultures, and I’ve built a large, diverse network of colleagues and friends from all walks of life, around the world,” she says. This independence came from acclimating to cities where she didn’t have a ready-made safety net in terms of family and friends, and gravitating to people who also have more distinctive journeys and paths, which she finds relatable.

A Fascinating Career Journey

When Lam turned 19, she moved to Belfast and earned her undergraduate degree in accounting at Queens University. She landed an internship at Coopers & Lybrand after participating in what was called the “milk round” where aspiring candidates interview with seven large accounting firms.

After her internship she decided she wanted to move into the financial services industry and reached out to the human resources manager to find opportunities to work on banking engagements. Since Ireland didn’t then have a thriving financial services industry, she was encouraged to look elsewhere. Coincidentally, the HR department had just received a request from the Cayman Island office for a senior associate.

As Lam says, that sounded “so exotic and perfect,” but since it was 1993, they resorted to the encyclopedia and a paper atlas to find out more about it. A promotional blurb proclaimed it as a growing financial service center, where all the largest institutions have registered offices: That sounded promising so she moved there and got her first exposure to the hedge fund industry which was already a prominent fixture in this little island nation.

She enjoyed studying the industry and learning about the strategies of the asset managers, and decided to continue specializing in the field. However, the client base was relatively small and homogenous, andshe realized after several years that there was a repetition in clients. Her desireto diversify within the industryprompted her move to the United States in 2000.

Looking back, she is proud that she took the leap of faith to follow her career abroad, a big departure from her comfort zone after growing up in Malaysia in what she describes as a relatively insular environment, where she didn’t travel much. The move to Ireland had been a big change, and it opened doors to other offices and experiences — eventually landing her in New York, the epitome of the American Dream.

Over the years she has had much success, eventually becoming a partner at PwC in 2009.

Embracing The Confidence That Comes with Age

Lam says that when she hit age 40, she started to develop a greater sense of calm– what she describes as self-awareness and acceptance –to a point where she feels more comfortable in her own skin. She compares the prior feeling to seeing an outfit online and then realizing that while it looks good, it doesn’t feel quite right on you. Fortunately shehas found that is an experience you outgrow as you become more grounded and sure. “I have a great sense of who I am and my boundaries,” she says. “I am more confident in the decisions I make and feel sure-footed even when I move to uncharted waters.”

Right now she finds the industry particularly exciting because of the changes brought on by technology – not just its impact on productivity, but also how the phenomenon impacts upon behavior and languages.

“We see the ramifications in that we are now more productive and efficient, but everyone also expects immediate gratification, which impacts the service industry and clients’ expectations,” she notes.

Now her clients are expected to provide more data quickly and to produce strong returns at a lower cost to their investors. Some of those pressures are, in turn, passed on to their service providers; so the work her team produces has to be delivered quicker and more efficiently at a lower cost basis, yet without jeopardizing quality.

As they all learn to adapt, she says it requires her and her peers to be more agile and embrace a culture shift in terms of being more open to change.

This new reliance on technology will also change the way that the new generation of staff are educated to anticipate the new way of auditing. Lam says that makes her even more proud to work for PwC, as the leaders do an excellent job of looking to the future and equipping the next generation.

Making Progress On Women’s Issues – Slowly

Lam says that unfortunately the challenges of women today are not much different than those her mother’s generation encountered. She finds that women are still at a crossroads when deciding when to start a young family and whether to take a career break. “Caregiving and child care issues still fall squarely on women,” she says, and most women say that the mindset hasn’t moved as quickly as would be expected.

She finds women are still subject to societal biases, and there is a punitive aftertaste when they have to make these choices. “Even the apprehension that surrounds making these decisions tells me that we are not on a level playing field,” she says, adding that although society is making strides, she looks forward to the day when it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice for women to have both a family and career.

One other area where she encourages women to make their own progress is in not minimizing the attributes of females that are beneficial in business, such as creating communities and building networks, lending a helping hand and asking for advice.

She recently dined with a young accountant looking to make a big career change who lamented the lack of recognition from her supervisors and ample rewards for her work, when compared to a male colleague, who tended to be more aggressive, bold and braggadocious to his supervisors.

The young accountant didn’t want to be that way, so Lam reminded her of the beneficial qualities that don’t rely on over-championing your own cause.

Carving Out Free Time

While her life might be balanced, she says her home is a “zoo,” with two Yorkie rescue pups and a cat. Living close to Central Park, she takes advantage of the opportunity to run there to clear her mind.

And, Lam looks forward to the annual pilgrimage to Singapore, where all her immediate family reunite at her mother’s house for two to three weeks. “It takes some juggling to plan, involving three different time zones, but it’s worth all of it to make that trip back home,” she says.

“Even with social media, nothing beats being together in person.”

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The Simmons Leadership Conference 2017

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The Simmons Leadership Conference was held on April 13, 2017 in  Boston and afterwards we caught up with three of the speakers on career topics. Josh Levs, award-winning broadcaster and journalist, and Barbara Fedida, Senior Vice President for Talent and Business, ABC News, The Walt Disney Company all shared their stories around leading with purpose, how passion matters and what insights on leadership they have learned.

conference

Image via Shutterstock

 

The Wage Gap is Real

Josh Levs gave a presentation at the conference called “Gender Equity: Leveling the Playing Field.” Josh says that he has witnessed first-hand the discrepancies of gender-based office policies that obstruct the development of any workplace. As a father and husband, shortly after his wife delivered, he was not approved by his employer at the time, to take time off to care for his child and wife. It became a case he took to court, and won. Josh is a pioneer in advocating for both women and men to have paid parental time off, and for women to have equal pay. Josh states, 

“The wage-gap is real. And ultimately, it also hurts men because their wives are under paid, and families need money.”

As a former fact-checker journalist, Josh provides evidence in his book, “All in,” on why men need to be actively involved in the conversation of pursuing equality for women. He is also active on endorsing the Family Act; funded through employee-paid payroll taxes and administered through their respective disability programs. Functioning as an insurance coverage, it is able to fund time off during Parental/Family leave.

Josh is not only passionate about what he does, he’s genuine and joyful about it!

Nurturing Talent

Barbara Fedida, Head of Talent and Business at ABC News, The Walt Disney Company who sat on the morning panel themed “Leading with Purpose”, commented on the importance of mentoring. She shares:

“There’s no secret sauce or formula to identifying talent, or at least not one that I can sum up in a few sentences. I think all the great journalists of our time share some common traits – passion, hard work, insatiable curiosity, a feeling that good is never good enough, drive, and, perhaps most importantly, a feeling that nothing is impossible.”

Barbara believes that the role of the mentor and boss is key because if you as a mentor can nurture these traits, she states, “Together you can be unstoppable.”

When asked what role a mentor has in nurturing talent, she refers to her own experience,

“I have always felt that I have done my best work when my bosses or mentors (and I have been blessed to have had some of the best in the business) encouraged me, had my back and made me feel like together we could conquer the world.”

And when it comes to keeping a team engaged and motivated, Barbara says, “Give people credit for their ideas and tell the bosses of their contributions. In fact, don’t just tell them – scream it from the rooftops.”

Whether a famous actress or an accomplished business leader, the speakers at the conference have all had to overcome doors closed in their faces, negative thinking and other obstacles. But they were driven by a purpose larger than themselves. They persevered. They blazed trails for others. They openly shared their experiences, to motivate and inspire us and we look forward to attending the 2018 conference scheduled for April 5 in Boston, MA.

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Diversity in the C-Suite: Leaders Championing Change

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 By Jessica Titlebaum Darmoni

diversity

Image via Shutterstock

On April 25, the Executive’s Club of Chicago hosted a discussion between Craig Donohue, Executive Chairman and CEO of Options Clearing Corporation, Aylwin Lewis, Chairman, President and CEO of Potbelly Sandwiches Works and Carter Murray, Worldwide CEO of FCB.  Moderated by Nichole Barnes Marshall, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion at AON, the conversation focused on how these leaders have addressed and implemented successful diversity and inclusion initiatives within their organizations.

Leveraging Positions of Power

Carter Murray, Worldwide CEO of FCB and the Chicago Foundation of Women’s Male Champion of Change, kicked off the discussion talking about the personal and professional reasons he is committed to gender equality.

“My mom’s family had a successful family business and while my mom was always driven, she grew up being told to get married and have children,” he said.

While his mother was persuaded against working, Murray said it was ironic that it was his mother’s twin brother who ran the family business into the ground.

“Before the company went bankrupt, my mother was able to take $50,000 out and became a successful entrepreneur.”

Murray explained that he saw how hard she had to work to prove herself, compared to her male counterparts.

“This is fundamentally wrong,” he said.

Leading a global organization, Murray also has a professional perspective on the issue. He has seen employees discriminated against because of their sexual orientation as well as female industry colleagues face sexism in the office.

Murray explained that the issue should be fixed at the top level of management.

“As a white heterosexual male, we need to fix this,” he said. “It starts with leadership. You know that quote that a fish smells from its head? As leaders we need to get this right, policies should be zero tolerance and we should not just talk, but take action.”

Agreeing with Murray, Potbelly President and CEO Aylwin Lewis also believes that inclusion needs to be part of the decision maker’s strategy. He stated,

We can’t see what’s in someone’s heart. You might have good intentions but we can’t gauge that, and we judge people on their actions.”

Craig Donohue, Executive Chairman and CEO of Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), also believes that leaders need to leverage their positions of power.

Donohue joined OCC in January 2014 after an extensive career at the CME Group where he was also committed to gender and pay equality.  The CME has always had a diverse group of leaders such as Kate Meyer who led the clearing house division from 1987 to 1998, or more recently Kim Taylor who is the current President of Global Operations and Technology.

It was after speaking with his daughter, a Chicago based lawyer, about the challenges she faced in her career that he focused on the glass half empty perspective rather than the glass half-full.  He asked what he could do to help the cause and has determined that bringing awareness and visibility to the issue is his solution. Donohue’s take on doing his part according to him at the event,

“We have a pulpit and we should use it.”

Donohue also talked about his experience as a ‘transformation agent.’

While a small organization, the OCC has great industry output providing clearing and settlement services for all the US options exchanges and acting as the guarantor to every options trade.Among the changes Donohue has implemented was bringing a handful of women to OCC’s Board of Directors.

“OCC had an all male Board but now we have three female members,” said Donohue referring to Susan E. Lester, Christine L. Show and Alice ‘Patricia’ White.

He has also put women in senior level positions and on the Management Committee including Amy Shelly, OCC’s Chief Financial Officer, Jean Cawley, OCC’s Senior Vice President and Special Advisor to the Chairman and Tracy Raben, OCC’s Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer.

Evolving Pool of Talented Candidates

One of the things stressed during the conversation was that companies should look for candidates with diverse backgrounds.

“If you are not looking for something, you won’t find it,” said Donohue.

FCB’s Carter gave advice on what not to do when looking at hiring needs.

“I believe it is insulting to look to fill a position with a woman just because it’s a female candidate,” he said.  “Instead, we should look to hire brilliant, talented people that will step up to the role.”

While there is onerous on the company to look for diversity within their candidates, it was also noted that the pool of talent is growing, especially in the financial sector.

“The financial industry used to be a man’s world but this is evolving as we are moving away from floor based trading, which was a physical business,” Donohue said.  “We used to hire candidates with military backgrounds and that specialized in engineering and mathematics.  Women are taking leading positions in these areas so the demographics are changing.”

Bringing It All Together

The Executives Club of Chicago put together an informational event on how organizations can be more successful in their diversity and inclusion initiatives.  While a top down approach is most beneficial, it’s important to also bring advocacy and awareness to the issue.  Identify benchmarks by looking at the workforce in categories related to diversity and evaluate how you stack up.  Also, figure out what you are looking for because if you don’t know, you won’t find it.  Finally, look to hire exceptional people, not just to fill quotas.

As the conversation was concluding, Barnes Marshall shared a saying often mentioned at Aon.

“Diversity is counting heads but inclusion is making heads count.”

 

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One Simple Step to Bust Out of Your Career Rut

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Sad businesswomanGuest contributed by Elizabeth Crook

There’s an epidemic in our country that’s impacting 40% of our population.

It’s lowering our immune systems, disturbing our sleep, breaking up our relationships, and creating depression and unwanted weight gain.

The epidemic seems very benign – it’s so common we often ignore it.

It’s called job dissatisfaction.

Historically there been more heart attacks on Monday morning than any other time of the week because so many of us are dragging ourselves to jobs that have depleted us. And even though the research was probably done on men, the implications for women are profound. Having the “wrong” job is not good for you.

Why do we stay?

Three simple reasons:

  • We are good at these jobs,
  • We may be too busy or too conscientious to recognize how stuck we are
  • We don’t know how to leave them.

We’ve been given accolades and compliments all our lives for what we do. We may be keeping our families afloat with these jobs. Our work may serve our social life or give us a strong sense of identity. We feel responsible to our team, our boss, or the company

Along with all that, we tend to see other options as more limited than they really are. We may even believe the industry or functional area the only ones we can be in, so we stay. And stay. And stay. Until our health is bankrupt, our relationships are compromised, and our dream of what we wanted has been lost.

Sound familiar? Don’t despair.

As a CEO coach and corporate strategist, many people from diverse arenas come to me because they want more than anything to love their work, but they don’t know how to get there.

Enter the energize/deplete paradigm.

In your everyday work, you encounter tasks that energize you and work that depletes you. Most people have don’t spend time thinking about it. However, identifying them is the is a big step toward getting to work that feeds your soul (and your bank account).

The first question to ask is: What do I know how to do?

Make a list. Brainstorm. Don’t hold back. Write down all those things you know how to do – think processes, not contents. This can include things beyond your work like your family or social life or even volunteer assignments. This isn’t your job description. This is what you know how to do.

The start of your list might look something like this:

  • Engage people in solving problems
  • Analyze data
  • Create narratives that give meaning
  • Recruit and hire people
  • Develop budgets
  • Manage projects
  • Manage people
  • Teach and mentor
  • Persuade
  • Sell ideas
  • Develop systems and processes
Identify the energizing activities.

Make a star next to the activities on your list that energize you – those things that even if your are working hard at them, you feel good doing them. Time passes in a minute when you are doing things that energize you, even if they take all day.

Do you feel depleted by managing people but are in a managerial position? Do you feel energized by being with people, but your work is behind an admin desk where you never get to interact? Are you energized by being creative, but your work is about collecting data?

Your starred activities are signposts, leading you to work that will feed your soul and make you feel like you are living large.

Your work now is to begin to increase the activities that energize you.

Shift your focus.

This may mean delegating the work that depletes you (anything that is not energizing you may very well be depleting you) or talking to your boss about shifting your focus at work towards what energizes you.

What if this list shows that nothing you do at work energizes you? What if all of your energizing how-tos are ones that you do out of work?

That’s fantastic information. And it might mean an overhaul of what you do for work. Chances are you can stay in your industry, but you may have to change what you do in this industry.

The Amazing Result.

What’s amazing about this simple exercise is that it activates something called the reticular activating system in the brain. The reticular activating system is the part of our brain that begins to notice red cars right when we decide we want a red car. Once we become aware of what energizes us, our subconscious begins to move us toward it.

As soon as we identify what depletes us, our defense system will begin to find ways to move away from those activities.We find ourselves making decisions about work that lead us toward those activities that we love.

Can it really be this simple?

Try it. See what happens.

Elizabeth Crook has been the CEO of Orchard Advisors for over 20 years, helping CEO’s grow their bottom line and have more fun. She believes that if everyone had the work and life they love, we could change the world! Her book, Live Large – The Achiever’s Guide to What’s Next will be released May 2017.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of our guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Developing Mental Complexity Will Help You at Work (and Life)

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woman thinking - pipelineBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

The world is increasingly complex and can be quite confusing these days.

How do you ensure you have the guts, glory, stamina and agility to survive all this change?

Mental complexity is the answer according Harvard psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey in their book “Immunity to change”. This is my personal favorite book right now for two reasons; I am writing a paper on behavioral change and also am grateful for the change I have personally experienced from committing to examining paradigms that no longer serve me.

This work can take the guise of coaching but touches on all aspects of your existence and is a vehicle for a happy sustainable life in my opinion.

Kegan and Lahey talk about how we tend to be in one of 3 “minds” or mindsets when it comes to our mental complexity levels and this has nothing to do with IQ.

So, level one is a “socialized mind” and is where the majority of people operate. Certainly, junior and middle managers can be successful here as part of being here requires following, caring what people think of you and generally towing the line be it within a corporation, culture or even a religion. People here are good team players. But, what does one lose by seeing life though this lens? If you do not fit with what the norm is, you might find yourself feeling inadequate and uncomfortable or undeserving in some way.

At work, you may be at the mercy of the effects of politics and feeling not aligned (and in society too). You will fight yourself to get aligned and reduce your cognitive dissonance. At what cost?

The next “mind” is the “Self-authoring” mind which with this increased mental complexity, you can relegate others opinions (and even your own opinions) to an appropriate place where they can be referenced within a bigger system than your own direct value set. Therefore, outliers from yourself and others will not consume you, and instead give you the power to bed the author of our own reality. You get to direct the movie in your head.

I can personally attest when I stared to think with this self-authoring mindset it was growth. It changed my life and I see it work well for my coaching clients and when (if) they get there then I can honestly say the ball is in their court which usually results in happier choices and happiness with choices made as well as robust future decision making ability.

This is particularly good for people who have set high standards for themselves or seek approval from others. This level of processing information will move you from having subjective feelings and suffering the emotional fallout from them to seeing things more objectively and in perspective.

By learning to look at as well as through certain lenses, you can evolve and as Kegan and Lahey put it “not be forever captive of one’s own theory, system, script, framework or ideology”. Then, you can start to be in the zone of the “Self-transforming mind” where expansiveness around what you see and hear at work is not uniquely filtered to meet your informational needs. In plain English, you can make meaning on a big picture level and not feel the anxiety around how it effects you which if you are in the socialized mind, will trigger you and make you take it personally. You can care and not be consumed by caring. Doesn’t that sound amazing?

So, how do you build mental complexity to thrive at work and in a crazy world? Tune in next week to find out more….

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