Carving Out Your Time – Simplifying for Success

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Guest contributed by Daria Rippingale, CEO, BillPro

simplifying

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Recently I was having a drink with a friend of mine and she was telling me about her newest obsession, the New York Times best seller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. In it she describes a method of decluttering your home that, according to Kondo, refocuses your mind and your life on the things that “spark joy” for you. Essentially, all of the items in your home should bring you some level of joy, while not adding to your stress, so that you can focus on the most important elements of your life.

The end goal is having a home that is clutter free and creates a relaxing environment. Each possession that takes up space should be meaningful – every piece of clothing, every book, every trinket is chosen with purpose and conviction. Anything that gets in the way of the end goal, anything that isn’t regularly used or doesn’t bring happiness, gets tossed.

I left that conversation thinking about clearing out the clutter in our personal lives and how that applies to our work lives, too. We hear the phrase “Do more with less” all the time, but I cringe at the idea of what that traditionally means – longer hours, the same amount of work done by fewer people and usually a drop in quality as a result.

I know from my own experience that with a little practice and some creative ideas, you can streamline your days, making every minute of your work-life meaningful and therefore less stressful and more effective. De-cluttering your work and even your company will allow you to live the true spirit of “doing more with less”.

Below are a few of my essential strategies:

Hone in on your objectives
Firstly, be clear about your goals and objectives, both for you and for your company. Having the destination in mind will make the trip a lot quicker. To continue the travel analogy, your goals are like your True North on a compass. True North is the objective to which all your projects should lead.

Take time to muse over what those goals and objectives might be. Try setting aside time, once a week, to get away from the rush of the office and just think. It probably sounds counter-intuitive to saving time, but the results can be astonishing. Take a walk, sit with a notepad in a quiet room, or do anything where you won’t have too many distractions, allowing you to fully focus on your thoughts. Stepping back from the daily grind, even for 15 minutes, lets you focus on what is really important.

Once you’re clear on where you’re going, it becomes easier to look at your current and upcoming projects and use your compass to guide you towards True North. Focus on the projects that will move you towards your destination. The others are just “busy work” and will only act as barriers to achieving the important things that do “spark joy”. Merely being busy isn’t the same as being productive. Activity doesn’t necessarily equal results.

Ensure that your team is clear on what their objectives are too. Communicate with them as to how their individual projects will lead to the desired destination. Empower them to identify “busy work” and to ask questions about processes and projects that don’t seem to fit with what the organization is trying to achieve.

Simplify Your Work Day

Clearing the decks of focus-stealing “busy work” will recover lost time at the macro level. Simplifying your day-to-day work stream will recover that time at the micro level. Start by eliminating the two biggest hindrances to your productivity – emergencies (that rarely are) and interruptions.

Start each day by looking at your to-do list and calendar, not your email. This sets your mind in motion on what needs to be done instead of what has already happened. Take a few minutes to order your task list for the day. Be sure to tag tasks that are high value and focus towards True North, not just urgent. Completing the high value tasks will return greater rewards on the time you invest in them.

The next time thief to tackle is interruptions, and the biggest culprit here is email. Email is like a spoiled child who wants your attention, and they want it now.

Start minimizing the impact email has on your day by turning off email alerts. If you’re like me, you know there is a never ending stream of messages, so there really is no need to be constantly reminded. Allow yourself 15-20 minutes for checking in and responding to your emails in between larger tasks, making it a welcome distraction rather than an annoyance.

When you’re ready to corral your email even more, consider the advice of Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour Work Week. He suggests only checking your email twice a day and using an auto responder stating the times you intend to review messages. For emergencies, they can always call.

Lastly, take 30 minutes before you finish up to reflect on the day. Examine what you accomplished, and what the value of those tasks were. Check your calendar for upcoming meetings and deadlines. This keeps you in that proactive state of mind instead of reactive, and prevents you from feeling anxious about the next day’s tasks.

If you want to do more with the time available to you, start by taking the time to focus on your True North – what’s important to your own goals and to the company. Use this as a compass to guide everything you do. Remove those projects that are simply “busy work” and concentrate on the tasks that move you forward. I believe that focusing on objectives and on simplifying everything has truly been integral to my success in leading the BillPro team on the journey of rapid growth. Certainly, without a sharp focus on the destination, we would not be in this position today.

BillPro CEO Daria Rippingale is considered a global authority on merchant processing. As an industry leader in e-commerce innovation, her fresh thinking regarding international payments and risk reduction has brought thousands of previously unserved merchants into the global marketplace. Follow on Twitter @BillProPayments

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8 Common Errors That Will Damage Your Career

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errors

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Guest contributed by Jennifer Tait

From time to time, most of us see or hear about some crazy behaviour at work. Whether it’s a full-blown argument, a dramatic resignation or gross misconduct, you know that irreparable damage has been done to that person’s career.

However, it isn’t just the crazy moments like these that damage a career. There are actually a number of behaviours (and relatively common ones too) that cause your colleagues to view you in a negative light.

Here are 8 behaviours that you should avoid at work if you don’t want to damage your career.

  1. Boasting

Bragging about your achievements is a sure-fire way to make your colleagues dislike you. Generally speaking we simply don’t like people who boast about themselves and appear big-headed. Plus, if you’re shouting about your successes this makes others think that success isn’t a common thing for you, hence when you get it you have to shout about it.

On the one hand, it is important for you to promote yourself and your skills at work, however, you should always ensure that it is in a way that doesn’t come across as boasting.

  1. Taking credit for someone else’s work

It’s never a good feeling when someone steals your idea and naturally, it stirs up feelings of resentment. You should never take credit for someone else’s work as it shows that you have no regard for your team. It will cause significant damage to your working relationships and therefore also your career.

  1. Gossiping

We all love a bit of juicy gossip, but it’s important not to get caught up in it at work. If you get carried away chatting about your colleagues’ mistakes then the only person who is going to look bad is you. What you say about others may easily find its way back to them, so don’t be the gossip who spreads negativity.

  1. Going over someone’s head

While it’s not uncommon to go over someone’s head in an attempt to avoid conflict, this can come across as backstabbing. This tends to be a cause of even more conflict as soon as your colleague bears the brunt of your actions.

Going over a colleague’s head always makes them look bad whatever your intentions so do everything you can to resolve problems without getting others involved.

  1. Saying you hate your job

We all have our down days at work where things just don’t go our way. However, no one wants to hear about how much you hate your job. Being negative has an impact on everyone else’s mood in the office and good managers are quick to address anyone who is bringing the team down.

If you really need to vent, save it for when you get home.

  1. Having an emotional outburst

Being able to control your emotions is a skill that is central to your professionalism at work and the success of your career. An outburst of anger demonstrates that you have low emotional intelligence and will make your colleagues question whether you can be trusted to keep it together when it counts.

Emotional outbursts are a quick way to win yourself a lot of negative attention and in extreme cases to get fired. Keep your emotions in check and never make others feels that you are intimidating and unapproachable.

  1. Lying

Most people don’t intentionally tell lies at work. You may tell a small white lie in order to protect yourself or somebody else in your team, however if you’re found out it could be very damaging for your career.

Being caught in a lie will cause others to distrust you. Also, lying can be exhausting and is likely to cause you more stress and worry in the long term. If you can’t be honest and genuine in your workplace then you are unlikely to be happy there.

  1. Burning bridges

Your business connections and working relationships are so important to the success of your career. No matter how you feel about people, you should aim to never burn bridges as you never know when a connection will prove useful to you in the future (a broken connection can also prove quite harmful).

Quitting your job and leaving without notice, for example, will not only cause a lot of problems for your boss but also your colleagues who will have to take on your workload.

Bringing it all together

None of these common errors are particularly surprising, but they are something that many people forget about and dabble in from time to time. If you can avoid behaviours like these, you’ll have a better chance of maintaining strong working relationships that are key to career success.

About the Author

Bridgewater Resources UK work with market-leading businesses across the UK and Ireland, connecting top talent with outstanding opportunities. They offer roles within wholesale, distribution and manufacturing industries, recruiting highly skilled individuals at all levels.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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What Skills Differentiate Women Who Make It To The Top?

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top

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Guest contributed by Steven Stein

What does it really take for women leaders to make it to the top in the business world? Over the past 20 years, we’ve compiled the world’s largest database of testing results on emotional intelligence—approximately 2 million people worldwide. The Emotional Quotients Inventory (EQ-i 2.0) is the first and most widely used emotional intelligence test in the world. One of the areas we look at is the relationship between emotional intelligence and success at work. In addition, we’ve looked at the role gender plays in how these emotional skills are expressed.

We were the first to document the differences between men and women’s emotional intelligence profiles. Interestingly, the results were consistent around the world. And while there’s no significant difference in overall emotional intelligence scores, there were differences in the types of emotional intelligence. Men scored higher in independence, stress tolerance and problem solving. Women, however, scored higher in emotional self-awareness, emotional expression and empathy.

Building on women’s strengths

In the early days of reporting on my organization’s emotional intelligence and organizational success research, I was challenged by a number of businesswomen. They told me that to be successful in the male corporate environment, such as in financial institutions and the tech industry, it was important to be tough. They thought that they had to be tougher than the men in order to succeed. Being aggressive, they said, was rewarded and the way to get ahead.

I thought differently. I suggested that women were generally better in interpersonal skills, empathy and emotional expression, and they should leverage these skills. While the traditionally male-dominant traits of stress tolerance, independence and using appropriate emotions in solving problems were important qualities for leaders, women’s skills in these areas did not lag behind the men’s. And to get ahead of the curve in leadership, the skills women already excelled in were the ones to focus on improving even more.

Women are moving the needle on defining leadership traits

One of our current research samples includes 280 executives who are about to be or are currently on boards of directors. These high-level executives, most of whom have worked their way up the organizational ladder, have acquired the skills one needs to make it to the top. The sample shows that women have essentially closed the gap in the areas where men traditionally score higher—independence, stress tolerance and problem solving. They have had to deal with stress throughout their careers and, at this stage, are more balanced in dealing with difficult situations. Also, they’ve been at a decision-making level for a significant amount of time and can manage the decision-making process well.

But the data also shows that women who make it to the level of senior executives moving onto boards bring some extra skills with them to the boardroom. These women outscore their male counterparts in emotional self-awareness, emotional expression and empathy. These skills have now emerged as defining future leaders.

What difference does it make having females on the board of directors?  The New York Times reported on a study by Credit Suisse looking at gender differences of board members. They examined almost 2,400 global corporations from 2005 to 2011, including the years directly preceding and following the financial crisis, and found that large-cap companies with at least one woman on their boards outperformed comparable companies with all-male boards by 26 percent.

The report continued, “Some might assume that there was a cost to this as well, that boards with women must have been excessively cautious before the financial crisis of 2008… Not so. From 2005 to 2007, Credit Suisse also found, the stock performance of companies with women on their boards essentially matched performance of companies with all-male boards. Nothing lost, but much gained.” Unfortunately, the number of women getting to the boardroom is still much lower than men.

Increase your emotional intelligence

Whatever your emotional intelligence strengths, you can develop and enhance the three specific traits exhibited strongly by women in leadership roles.

  1. Cultivate self-awareness. Practice can help you become more emotionally self-aware. Through activities like meditation and mindfulness, you can learn to focus more on what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling that way. Knowing yourself better will help you become more balanced and centered when dealing with stressful situations and people.
  2. Find the balance for emotional expression. Being emotionally expressive comes naturally for many people. There’s nothing wrong with letting others know when something is bothering you or when you’re pleased with someone’s work. Be honest and authentic. Expressing your feelings can make you more real and likeable as a person, especially when you learn to manage it well. On the other hand, being overly expressive or under expressive can lead to trouble.
  3. Make empathy your secret strength. Great leaders are empathic. They are able to listen to others and understand where they’re coming from. But don’t mistake empathy for believing you must give in to everyone’s wants and needs. Understanding another person’s situation helps you make better decisions about what feels right for you.

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Steven Stein, Ph.D., is a leading expert on psychological assessment and emotional intelligence. He is the founder and CEO of Multi-Health Systems, a leading publisher of scientifically validated assessments. Dr. Steven Stein is the author and coauthor of several books on emotional intelligence, including his new book, The EQ Leader: Instilling Passion, Creating Shared Goals, and Building Meaningful Organizations through Emotional Intelligence

Disclaimer: The views and advice given by our Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Women Leaders as Agenda Movers: Leveling the Playing Field

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female leaderGuest Contributed By Samuel B. Bacharach

Recently I was asked to give a talk to a forum attended by fifty women executives. The topic was based on my new book and was titled, “The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough.” Two days before the talk, two invitees objected, or at least questioned, my legitimacy, and pointedly asked the organizers “What does a man know about women and leadership?”

My response was that, indeed, I had no expertise that was unique to the challenges of being or aspiring to be a woman leader. My expertise is in the micro-political skills that any leader—no matter what their personality, background, age, gender—needs in order to move their ideas, their agendas, and their change efforts forward.

I am the first to admit that every leader brings to their agenda mover challenges their unique voice, their unique skills, and their unique narrative. Leaders face different burdens. While, for some, due to societal expectations and pressures, the burdens are greater, the core skills of leadership are ubiquitous.

If you want to succeed in an organization, if you want to move your idea forward, if you want to drive your career—to lead any effort, you need to have mastered political competence. That is, you must acquire and develop the micro-skills overcome resistance, mobilize support, and go the distance. Leaders of all stripes need to understand that a good idea is simply not enough. As a leader, you need the skills of political competence.

Having trained leaders at all levels of numerous organizations, I have determined that there are four fundamental agenda-moving skills:

1. Anticipate. When innovating and creating change, your idea is inevitably going to impact others. You have to anticipate how others will react to your idea. You need to know whom you’re dealing with, interpret their intentions, gauge their resistance, and expect the arguments that they will make against your idea.

Successful leaders spend as much time formulating their plan as they do mapping the political terrain and working out how they will present and justify their ideas to others. They expect resistance, and have made plans to overcome the naysayers.

2. Mobilize. You can’t do it alone. To achieve results, you have to work with a coalition of supporters who share your goals. Coalitions not only lighten the workload, but they reinforce your credibility and protect you—and your team—against unexpected setbacks.

To mobilize others, you must be careful to focus your message, be smart about timing the release of your messaging, astute about language, and perceptive about your audience. Support can be weak or strong, or middling, and politically competent leaders know when lukewarm support is enough to get their agenda accomplished, and when they have to press harder for a greater degree backing.

3. Negotiate. You have to negotiate support. You have to show others that there is little risk in joining you in your effort. Give a sense that you are fine without them, but it would be nice to have them along on the effort. Show prospective coalition members what they can gain from aligning their interests with yours. Getting the buy-in is about shifting your focus from your passion to really seriously thinking about where others are coming from, and what would motivate them to join your effort.

4. Sustain. You have to keep working after your coalition is in place. It falls on your shoulders as the leader to maintain traction, create short-term wins, create short-term victories, supply resources, and reinforce an optimistic outlook.

Sometimes agenda movers make the mistake of front-loading their effort on the coalition creation stage, and slack off once the coalition is formed. You can’t let your enthusiasm flag as you head toward the finish line. Make sure your coalition becomes a focused, agile, coordinated, forward-moving team.

After my talk, one attendee came up to me and said that the agenda moving skills were something that she learned late in life. She also mentioned that young men are taught the ropes of the political games well before young women. Isn’t that the sad truth?

Considering the challenges that women face, mastering the skills of an agenda mover is just but one more step to leveling the playing field.

About the author

Samuel B. Bacharach is the author of THE AGENDA MOVER: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough (Cornell University Press, 2016). He is also co-founder of the Bacharach Leadership Group, which focuses on training leaders in the skills of the Agenda Mover, and is the McKelvey-Grant Professor at Cornell University.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Is It Possible to Be an Entrepreneur within a Corporate Structure?

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Business meeting with women and menGuest Contributed by Meg Schmitz

At some point in everyone’s career we begin to take inventory of what want in a job, what we seek for our professional growth and what brings us joy. In an ideal world, we’d all have jobs that don’t feel like work, pull a huge paycheck and allow us to achieve our goals. However, the reality is that many people, for reasons often beyond their control, leave work every day feeling unfulfilled – often, this is due to underutilizing a key skill set or feeling that potential is being left untapped.

For individuals who are drawn to entrepreneurship but don’t yet own a business, there’s a middle ground – the less-talked-about intrapreneurship. In a nutshell, intrapreneurs bring the entrepreneurial spirit to their corporate structure. This translates to freedom of thought, out-of-the-box problem solving, flexible brainstorming and long-range thinking that can be lost in the day-to-day grind. Intrapreneurs have the advantage of paycheck security and other benefits, all while being able to explore new avenues to sell a product or service in a role they already have familiarity with.

Another important component of intrapreneurship is the level of focus that intrapreneurs possess. An entrepreneur should view his or her company as a vision from starting point to end, but an intrapreneur works within the company to focus directly on a specific problem. Intrapreneurs, therefore, should have more directly applicable skills for a specific task. An intrapreneur takes risks, but those risks fall within the context of his or her job in the existing company. So, rather than focusing on the whole company, intrapreneurs hone in on the processes within it.

In this same vein, intrapreneurs are the primary forces of innovation within their companies. Like entrepreneurs, they look to provide solutions to unique, often market-driven problems. They focus on policies, technologies and applications that solve a specific problem, often resulting in productivity issues. In the same way that an entrepreneur starts a company to provide a service or product, an intrapreneur takes on a task within the company to strengthen it as a whole.

This sounds great, right? Somehow being able to balance your entrepreneurial ambitions with job security? Well, it’s not that easy – the first step is finding a company that’s open to intrapreneurs and their big ideas. When you’re looking for a job, make a point to find a corporate culture that supports your innovation, and actively interview for a culture that matches your values, goals and personality. Flexibility should be encouraged instead of suppressed, and the company should be comfortable with out-of-the-box thinking. It’s also worth considering exploring if the company has the budget – and internal capacity – to make the changes you might bring. Flexibility is key, but the space for implementation of your new ideas is what will actually allow intrapreneurs to fully realize their ideas.

What do intrapreneurs look like? They’re often independent, willingly autonomous individuals who like to thoroughly investigate every facet of a problem they’re presented with. They don’t respond well to micromanagement as they feel it stifles the experimental and creative processes. They’re free thinkers, but appreciate the overarching structure of a company that they feel aligns well with their values, goals and career direction. They’re the building blocks of their company’s executive teams and are a driving force behind innovation and forward motion.

If you see yourself in the description of an intrapreneur, you’re not alone – women make great intrapreneurs. We’re better equipped to challenge the status quo – we’ve been doing it as long as we’ve been alive! Fighting is in our blood, and we have great ideas that are well thought out and adaptable. Young women, in particular, have shown increasingly entrepreneurial ambitions, but many lack the experience or resources to pursue their own business at this time – however, entrepreneurially minded women may find that bringing a spirit of intrapreneurship to their corporate jobs gets them quite far. In fact, most businesses celebrate having women in higher-level positions, so why not harness this positive energy and look at ways to challenge the status quo further with big ideas, long-range thinking and out-of-the-box problem solving?

Meg Schmitz is an independent consultant of FranChoice based in Morton Grove, Ill. Her free services aid individuals along their path to professional independence, while developing a plan to achieve personal lifestyle goals through franchise investments. Contact Meg at MegSchmitz@FranChoice.com.

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Why Are Women Underrepresented in These Key Job Markets?

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Image via Shutterstock

By Tiffany Rowe

Our technological world is expanding at an astounding rate and jobs in the STEM industry remain in high demand. Those holding degrees in math, technology, engineering, and the sciences have, in many cases, their pick of lucrative and rewarding jobs. When you add an advanced degree in one of those subjects or in business then the opportunities are seemingly endless.

However, while the world as a whole is contributing to advancements in these areas, the people who secure these jobs are overwhelmingly men. Women are represented equally in some of these fields but engineering and computer science degrees are given to only about 29 percent of female undergraduates. University classrooms where STEM classes are taught are generally filled with male students. Some women are the sole representatives of their gender in these classes.

Many of us have long been told that this gender gap in these fields is related to the notion that girls receive less encouragement than their male counterparts to tackle these subjects during their lower educational years. While this can’t be proven, the simple fact that men far outnumber women in the STEM industries can’t be ignored.

While you may hear many different reasons why this occurs, we’re going to look at some solutions that can help women boost their power in the STEM job market and bring their unique talents to the industry.

Erase the Stigma

Many people erroneously believe that girls are not supported nor encouraged to take on advanced classes in mathematics and sciences during their younger years or that they’re not as capable as boys are. Factually this is untrue as both boys and girls show equal results on aptitude tests for these subjects.

Women and girls are more than capable of learning the fundamentals of higher mathematics and sciences when they’re given the opportunity. However, the stigma still exists that girls are less capable of excelling at these subjects than boys are. Younger children are experiencing less of this today than they were even just a few years ago, but young women in high school and college may still feel that these fields are not right for them or that they won’t succeed.

What Parents and Educators Can Do

While educational trends and how they focus on female students are changing, there are still many things that parents and educators can do to encourage interest in these subjects. Childhood curiosity knows no gender so if your daughter shows an interest in computers, math, or science do all you can to encourage that.

Learning how to write code comes very easily for younger children just as foreign languages do. If you’re an educator, encourage your school district’s administrators to implement these classes for children in lower grades. There has been a push to encourage more coding education, backed by the likes of Amazon, Google, Code.org, and more. As of just a few years ago, only 0.4 percent of college-bound women intended to major in computer science.

What Women Can Do for Themselves

Many women who have already attended university and achieved a degree in an unrelated field may think they’re now unqualified for any type of job in the STEM industry. Fortunately that’s not always the case. Many women who have undergraduate degrees in arts or humanities can take additional classes to better familiarize themselves with the fundamentals.

Earning online MBAs is a great way to get an edge in the industry. Advanced business degrees almost always include the option to narrow the focus of the program and these focuses do include some science and technology. Plus, innovations made in science and technology are useless unless the right person has the business and marketing skills to introduce them successfully to the public or direct them to the proper channels for further research and development.

It’s very easy to realize that, given the complex nature of our changing society and environment, that people with the technological skills and education to continue to make advancements for the benefit of society are invaluable. In fact, our lives and the lives of generations to come may depend on the technology we perfect and discover today. All of us can only benefit from having as many people tasked with solving complex problems as we can and that needs to include women. And with the right education, encouragement, and tools there’s no reason that can’t happen.

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To work with M&A: Young Women Lawyers May Be Missing Out

female lawyers featuredBy Aimee Hansen

Women lawyers are underrepresented in M&A primarily because they are less likely to enter and stay in the field. But some M&A women partner lawyers wonder if young lawyers know what they are missing.

The gender gap in M&A

A study of more than 17,500 lawyers at 25 law firms nationwide found that women held 48 percent of first and second year associate positions (corporate: 43 percent, M&A: 40 percent) but only 18 percent of senior equity partner positions (corporate: 16 percent, M&A: 15 percent).

While a glaring gap in women between the associate level and equity partner level exists across law, the distinguishing M&A gap is at entry level. Female enrollment in M&A courses (37%) was also noticeably below enrollment overall (45%), showing that law students are disinclined to enter, and/or discouraged from entering, the lucrative practice of M&A.

The survey’s authors speculate that perceptions about M&A keep women out, such as being testosterone-fueled, more demanding, and not family-friendly.

Being a woman in M&A

Clare O’Brien, Partner at Shearman & Sterling, entered M&A as a third year associate only because the firm had a mandatory rotation policy back then.

“I actually didn’t really want to go to M&A because it had a reputation of being very ‘male’ …” says O’Brien. “That’s a cautionary tale, in the sense that if I’d had my druthers, I wouldn’t have chosen to rotate to the M&A team, but I was really glad that I did.”

M&A law is skewed male, and investment banks (with which M&A lawyers regularly interact) more so, but O’Brien says being a woman has not impeded her advancement.

“Nobody made me feel less competent or less able than any of my male colleagues. I got opportunities to do the same sort of work, the same level of responsibilities and the same exposure to clients as my male colleagues,” O’Brien shares. “From my point of view, my preconceptions were not, as a general matter, actually born out in practice. Maybe I was lucky to work with the people I did, or maybe the preconceptions are a little bit unfair.”

Here are some of the rewarding aspects of M&A that you may not know about:

Being central to people and process

“I think it’s one of the more interesting practice groups to be in, because in a transactional practice, M&A tends to be the hub, and so people who work on the M&A team are generally responsible for the transaction documents,” says O’Brien, “which means we get to solicit and receive input from other practice groups and then incorporate that input into the transaction documents.”

According to O’Brien, more exposure to the processes of client decision-making and multiple practices positions an M&A lawyer well if she or he decides to transition to an in-house or business position.

“You are more of a generalist than any other practice area,” says O’Brien, ”which, I think, makes you a better lawyer. And you generally have closer contact with the business people than people working in other practice areas.”

Learning on an on-going basis

“We have a very cross-border practice, so, at least in my work, you get confronted with different legal regimes and questions that you don’t know the answer to and have to find out, so you’re constantly learning,” says O’Brien. “That may be true of other practice areas, but my sense is that they are more jurisdiction-based than M&A.”

This growth opportunity includes the latitude to learn about M&A as you enter the field. Among a recent panel of six senior M&A women lawyers at BC Law, few had either interest or experience in finance during underground or law school.

Having satisfying work flow

M&A lawyers report that it’s gratifying to move through the finite deal-making process from beginning to end, and that a transaction-based practice offers a sense of completion.

“The work has a flow to it, which is satisfying in the sense that you get to work on a transaction, you get to understand at least some of what your client does, as well as the business that is the subject of the deal, you get to draft and negotiate the transaction documents, and get to a signing, and then a closing,” says O’Brien. “Each signing and closing represents a milestone, and therefore an accomplishment.”

In the panel, M&A lawyers also expressed that the hands-on immediacy of the work (as opposed to litigation on past damages) and tangibility make it rewarding.

Leveraging strategic and relationship-building skills

While M&A is more associated with masculinity, much of the skills required – collaboration, listening and consensus building – are more “stereotypically” feminine.

“I think you get to be a better listener, and to exercise diplomatic skills…What you’re trying to do is to find solutions instead of erecting roadblocks,” says O’Brien, “so you have to be creative and prepared to think outside of the box. You have to be able to listen to the other side’s concerns, why they don’t want to do what you want them to do, and then, where possible, find a compromise.”

“You can’t just pound the table and say ‘it’s my way or the highway’ because that often won’t work,” says O’Brien, “and your client won’t thank you for it because your client wants to get a deal done and wants somebody who can help it do that, rather than hinder that.”

When it comes to the broader benefit of women in deal-making, a recent study of S&P 1500 companies found that organizations with a higher proportion of women on the board pay less for both acquisitions (15.4 percent less for each female director) and takeovers (7.6 percent less for each female director).

What about the schedule?

Flexibility is increasing in firms and much can be done remotely during the valleys of work, but peaks are both exciting and intense. When signing or closing a deal, being in the same room for extended hours with the client and the other side is often still necessary.

“What can be hard is the unpredictability of your schedule,“ says O’Brien. “If your client wants to do a deal and it happens they want to do it over the weekend, you have to do it over the weekend.”

O’Brien emphasizes the importance of building up a support network you can rely on, and notes that M&A lawyers usually have the means to pay for that support. Also, finding flexibility, one senior M&A lawyer reports arranging her summers off with her kids.

“I think what you have to do is say OK, when I’m ready to have a family, I’m going to have a family,” says O’Brien. “If you’re waiting for the right time, there’s never going to be the right time, so you have to go ahead and do it when it’s right for you.” O’Brien’s own daughters are eleven and seventeen years old.

Is M&A for you?

Like any area of practice, M&A will not be for every women lawyer, but if you can get beyond the dissuading preconceptions, you may find yourself surprised.

“In my view, M&A is one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting practice area in corporate law, and the perceptions that women are less welcome, and are less successful, are overblown.” says Shearman & Sterling’s O’Brien. “If you decide that you want to pursue a corporate practice that is transactional, and if you’re interested in being intellectually challenged and interacting with people on a constant basis, you should seriously consider becoming an M&A lawyer.”

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Ask Yourself These Questions before Accepting That Job Offer

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Women-on-TabletHow exciting to get a new job offer! Perhaps you have been job searching for a while. Maybe you are relieved to finally secure a position that seems worthy of your talent and experience. After months of submitting resumes online and the seemingly never ending series of phone interviews that go nowhere, getting an offer is validation that you are still marketable.

Of course, our first impulse is to take the job. Yet, there are many things to consider when you receive a job offer at a new company. It’s common to focus first on the compensation and benefits package, the new title and responsibilities. We can get distracted by all this. But if you are ambitious and forward thinking, you also need to consider what the new company can offer YOU in terms of your long range career goals and potential advancement.

Here are some questions you should ask when evaluating a new company:

Are there women in senior executive roles?

One of the first things to look at is the organizational chart to determine if there currently are women in leadership roles. If there is some representation of women at a high level, where did these women come from? Were they promoted from within or recruited from the outside?

The answer to this question is important in order to determine if the company is invested in building a pipeline of women and committed to nurturing that pipeline to leadership roles.

Do senior women have P&L responsibility?

Many companies will boast that they have promoted women to assume leadership roles, but when you take a good look at the organizational chart you may discover that these positions do not come with any fiscal responsibility. In other words, the company may have gendered roles even at the senior level. A lack of female role models has been noted to be an obstacle for high achieving women.

Do women have power and influence?

What role do women play in the overall operations and strategy of the company? Do they have any involvement in setting the direction of the company? Are there women on the Board of Directors? Do women at all levels sit on committees that have a voice with senior management?

Does the company invest in developing women leaders?

Is there a women’s network? If so, is it supported by senior management? Does the initiative have a reasonable budget? The budget is a big clue! Many of these programs lack any financial support which most likely indicates the company is paying lip service to supporting the advancement of women. Very little can be accomplished without money or executive sponsorship.

Does the company have a program for high potentials?

If so, what is the representation of women in this program? Are the criteria for inclusion in the program clearly defined? Are women moving to leadership positions once enrolled in this initiative?

Does the company have a formal sponsorship program?

Once again, it’s important to determine if women are included in sponsorship programs because these programs provide the type of advocacy and support that lead to promotions. What is the result of their sponsorship? If there isn’t a formal program, are women being sponsored or are they stuck in the mentorship trap? Speak with HR to determine if sponsorship for high potential women is recognized as important and actively promoted with senior leadership support.

Does the culture of the company align with your values?

This question is perhaps the most important one of all. Does the overall culture of the organization align with your core values and your ambition? The culture can support you or stifle you and unless you take the time to meet with people and ask questions, it is extremely difficult to see what’s happening behind the scenes.

You can determine quite easily if there are flexible work options and other policies that are important to your ongoing success by looking at the employee handbook or consulting with human resources. Answering these questions will certainly help you to determine if the company is supportive of high achieving women and working mothers.

But on a very basic level, you should answer this question for yourself: What type of culture will best support my ambition? If you want to create visibility and credibility for yourself, are you more likely to succeed in a hierarchical structure or a consensus driven organization, a conservative or cutting edge culture? Where will you be able to voice your opinion and make a difference?

Every company has its unique culture and it’s dangerous to stereotype based on the industry; all the more reason to take the time to figure out if the organization aligns with who you are, how you like to work, and where you want to go with your career.

The bottom line here is that our eagerness to take a job offer in a new company may seem like the best move to make. But before you accept the offer, consider whether or not the company is the right company for YOU.

Bonnie Marcus, M.Ed., is the President of Women’s Success Coaching, where she helps professional women advance their careers. She is the author of THE POLITICS OF PROMOTION: How High-Achieving Women Get Ahead and Stay Ahead (Wiley).

Guest contributed by Bonnie Marcus

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Best of Career Tips

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Our resident Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist Nicki Gilmour writes a regular inspiring and useful career tip column for theglasshammer that helps women navigate through their career.Nicki Gilmour

If you are interested in hiring an Executive Coach you may contact Nicki directly on Nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation chat about our services.

Take a look at the some of the previous articles Nicki has written:

 

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

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.

Why wanting more at work can be a good and bad thing

I am very guilty of living in the future and this can lead to not being 100% engaged in the present.

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Are You Dying to Get to the Top?

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Guest contributed by Laleh Hancock

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Image via Shutterstock

Yes, the pun is intended! It’s well documented that executives who ignore the warning signs from their body put themselves at risk of serious illness and injury, if not death.
I am not about to give you a list of do’s and don’ts. You’re smart. You’re talented. You’ve read it all and you know what’s required. You’re a leader and an executive, and yet you are reading this for some reason.
 
Maybe you have started to notice some of those warning signs, such as being tired all the time? Maybe you’re being distracted by your busyness and you just need some assistance with implementation? Maybe, even though you have it all – the job and the life that everyone wants – you are not as happy as you thought you would be, and you feel like there has to be more to life?
 
You can have, be, and do it all. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.
 
Best of all, you don’t have to give anything up. In fact, you need to include more! You need to include YOU and your body!
 
It is not about ‘balance.’ It’s about mindfulness; remaining aware of everything, no matter what is going on, and taking effective action, which includes making YOU and your wellness a priority.
 
It’s easy to ignore all those whispers from the body when you are busy – “Sure, I need to go to the bathroom, but I’ve only got one hour to get this done. I can wait.” But can you really afford to? The more whispers you ignore, the more likely your ‘glass hammer’ is going to turn into a ‘sledge hammer’ to the back of the head! It starts with whispers, but if you don’t pay attention, it ends up shouting at you with debilitating illnesses or injuries that force you to take a break.
 
Three things can turn it around for you:
 
1. Breathe – Focusing on your breath reconnects you with your body. Try taking a breath up from under your feet, to the top of your head, then release it back down to your feet; reconnecting you to the contributing energies of the Earth. This has a calming effect, adds oxygen to your body, allows you to refocus your attention and energies on the thoughts and actions that will create your desired outcome with greater ease.
 
2. Ask questions. The point of a question is to gain additional information and awareness, not rely on answers we’ve already concluded. Questions are expansive, and they put what you desire out into the ether, so the universe can contribute back to you and your body. 
 
Start with, “What would it take?” questions. Ask them often, and expand your sense of the possibilities available to you that you may have not considered.
 
For example: You’re on a tight deadline, but your body wants to move. Ask, “What would it take to move my body and meet the deadline?” Really wonder about it. Then continue with your activities and see what ideas shows up. Asking the question without a conclusion in mind makes you more receptive to possibilities that you may not have considered before. Ideas might come to you that enable you to do both, such as taking your phone to record ideas while you walk around the block. You can have a planning and creativity session with yourself on more effective solutions, and still give your body the contribution it was asking for.
 
3. Expand Your Zone of Awareness. It’s so easy to become myopic when you are busy, yet this is so contractive and counter-productive to the creativity required for success.
 
Throughout the day, stop and ask, “Where is my focus?” and expand it. All you have to do is ask, and it will automatically expand.
 
Also ask, “Is anything required of me?” and follow any ideas you might have. You may find a particular project pulling on your attention, or you might hear a whisper from your body.
 
The more you include your body in your goals, the more your body will have your back. It’s a two-way street!
Like most of us with ambitious goals, Laleh Alemzadeh-Hancock tried to do it all. Climb the corporate ladder, be a great spouse, and the perfect mother. She would self-sacrifice, eat at her desk, stay late, and still manage the household. Both her family and her work were priorities. The only one who wasn’t was herself. Now, Laleh is a management consultant, Joy of Business facilitator and the CEO of Belapemo and Global Wellness For All. With nearly 30 years of experience in operational excellence, change management, and organizational wellness, Laleh has inspired and empowered hundreds of thousands of individuals, including Fortune 500 executives, to seek greater success, happiness and wellness.
 
 
Laleh Alemzadeh-Hancock is a management consultant, Joy of Business facilitator, and founder and CEO of Belapemo and Global Wellness for All. A passionate change-agent, Laleh has empowered thousands of individuals including Fortune 500 executives, government agencies, not-for–profit organizations, athletes and veterans to achieve optimal growth.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com
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