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

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By Nicki GilmourNicki Gilmour

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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Asian Americans: Held At Outsider Status

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By Aimee Hansen

Asian

Image via Shutterstock

For the first time in history, three Asian American women are in the Senate during this 115th Congress – Senator Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Tammy Duckworth (Illinois), and Kamala Harris (California). When elected in 2012, Senator Hirono was the first Asian American woman elected to the Senate. Harris is also the first Indian-American to serve in the Senate.

When it comes to Forbes and Fortune power rankings, Indra Nooyi is the only Asian American woman on the lists – #2 in Fortune’s 2016 50 “Most Powerful Women in Business” and #14 in Forbes “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” But as theglasshammer highlighted last year, Forbe’s America’s Self-Made Richest Women tells a different story about Asian American women at the helm: they make up 15% of this ranking.

According to a Girls in Tech survey of 582 women, Asian American women are the least likely to hold leadership positions in tech. This echoed the findings from the previously highlighted Hidden In Plain Sight tech diversity study by Ascend.

The Asian effect is 3.7X greater than the gender effect on creating a ceiling. Women were 42% less likely than men to hold executive roles. But Asians were 154% less likely to hold executive roles than Caucasians. Asian-American women, in the intersection of both, faced the greatest gap in likelihood to hold executive positions.

Persistent Asian-American Stereotypes

As shared in Sparks, Malini Johar Schueller, Department of English professor at University of Florida says that Asian American women are often seen as “perpetual foreigners,” never truly being seen as a “American” (or insiders), but rather as “abnormal foreigners” (outsiders). For Schueller, this means having to “qualify” herself to teach in her department, even to students.

A recent article in Harvard Business Review  suggests that two intersecting stereotypes are at the crux of the general Asian-American leadership gap: “Stereotypes about Asians being highly competent can make Asians appear threatening in the workplace, and stereotypes about Asians lacking social skills make them seem unfit for leadership.”

Studies have revealed that those who held the stereotypes that Asians were highly competent felt admiration and envy. Those who held the stereotypes that Asians lacked social skills felt hostility and fear. People who are emotionally reacting to stereotypes they hold are less likely to have interest in interacting with Asian-Americans. And of course, personal interaction is what can challenge stereotypes.

Leaders who hold stereotypical narratives about Asian Americans would hold them at a distance, and potentially at a distance from leadership.

As stated in HBR,

“The authors of both papers theorized that whites are threatened by the ‘unfairly high’ levels of competence possessed by Asians and essentially use the stereotype that Asians lack social skill as a pretext for discrimination.”

In The Asian American Achievement Paradox, professors of sociology Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou challenge ‘the narrative of Asian American “exceptionalism”’ and the assumption that Asian American educational achievement is solely reflective of cultural values. The authors illustrate that a confluence of hyper-selectivity in immigration laws, institutions, and cultural success frames have promoted high achievement among certain Asian American groups.

The study asserts that while stereotype promise (“the boost in performance that comes with being favorably perceived and treated as smart, high-achieving, hardworking, and deserving students”) may help Asian American students, it also re-creates stereotypes that hinder at the leadership level.

Broken Leadership Stereotypes

As argued in HBR, we tend to expect workers to be “competent, intelligent and dedicated,” but attach further qualities to leadership (charismatic, socially-skilled, authoritarian) that do not match up to stereotypes we hold about Asian Americans.

But it’s not only the mis-match between these two that is flawed when it comes to elevating Asian Americans into leadership. The archaic leadership stereotypes themselves are broken.

“It is time to rethink the ‘good leader’ prototype of being masculine, dictatorial, and charismatic,” states the HBR authors. “Evidence shows that neither men nor women prefer to be treated in an aggressive fashion, yet that model persists as a valid expectation for leadership.”

Cultural values can also mean that Asian Americans are less inclined to the self-promotion that is encouraged by Western norms. However, those who break the stereotype of being deferential face the double-bind of being perceived negatively.

Bridging the Distance

Recently, whitewashing in films – casting white actors to tell Asian stories – has received growing awareness and protest, while Asian American actors find only one-dimensional, stereotype-reinforcing roles available to them.

Thai American actor Pun Bandhu told the Guardian. “When a white actor gets the role, it denies us our bodies and it denies us our voices.”

More and more, we are being asked to consider how we are each complicit within the net of our culture in denying the bodies and voices of others through our implicit biases.

Harvard social psychologist Mahzarin R. Banaji, creator of the the implicit bias test, spoke in a conversation with Krista Tippett about being challenged by her own test when it comes to making associations that go against the socialized norm: “And when I can’t do it, I understand. I understand that I’m a product of a culture where the culture has now gotten into my head enough that I am the culture. I cannot say, ‘There’s a culture out there. It’s biased, not me.’ Consciously, that’s true. But not at this other level.”

When people gather around the meeting room or even the Senate, they all come with their stereotypes and hidden biases, but nothing is more important than the interaction that helps to break down the ideas we hold of each other, collectively.

Three Asian American women in the Senate may not seem like a lot, but each woman is helping to change the face of leadership.

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Should You Say No to Networking?

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Guest Contributed by Kelly Hoey

Networking

Image via Shutterstock

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates attributed their success to one factor. According to Buffett biographer Alice Schroeder, in 1991 when Bill Gates’ dad asked Buffett and Gates what the most important factor for their success was, they both gave the same answer, “FOCUS.”
 
Focus always comes before success.
 
Steve Jobs, no slouch in the success department himself, said that
“it’s only by saying No that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” 
 
Success is not possible without a clear focus on what matters most and the ability to concentrate your energy, thought and capital. In other words, a key to success is learning to say NO. No to personal and professional invites, business networking events, conferences, industry get-togethers, meetups. All the things you instinctively want to say yes to. I know it’s hard to say no – you feel guilty, you don’t want to disrespect the host, you want to look like a team player, you feel like you’ll miss out on something interesting or you’re afraid that if you say NO you’ll never be invited again.
 
But here’s the key: Ask yourself if that event you’re thinking about attending today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow. By staying focused on where you’re headed, you’ll be able to figure out whether saying no will get you further ahead or is simply an excuse that’s holding you back.
 
2015 was my year of no. I said no to pretty much everything as I was singularly focused on getting a book deal. This project needed my undivided attention, so no it was. I needed to focus and didn’t want distractions. Did I miss opportunities? Maybe. But saying no at this juncture of my career was the right thing to do. That has not always been the case. Saying no at other points in my career would have been a career-killer.
 
When entrepreneur Rachel Hofstetter was growing her business, she knew the strength of her network was dependent on her selectively and strategically saying yes. Rachel founded Guesterly (acquired in 2015 by photo-book subscription service Chatbooks) an on-line service which extends the warm hand of the host by connecting guests before a big event.
 
She focused her networking efforts by keeping both long-term and shorter-term goals in mind. When she was getting ready to raise investment money, Rachel prioritised attending investor and start-up-focused events. When she moved to a new city, she found herself attending every type of event she could, in order to meet people. Expanding her network was why she accepted every invitation and checked out every event, rather than turning them down. When she launched Guesterly into the wedding market (an industry where she previously knew no one), she attended every wedding-industry-related event she could find, in order to figure out exactly where she needed to focus her networking efforts.
 
At this point in her career, she knew not to say no. She knew that her network mattered just as much as the quality of her work. If someone asked if she wanted to head to happy hour- yes. Grab a group lunch? Yes. Those people moved around jobs and industries and that network made introductions that led her somewhere amazing.
 
So, yes, there are networking opportunities you should never say no to, especially in the workplace. Universally saying you will never attend networking events at work is—not to be too dramatic here—career suicide. Never say no to opportunities to get to know your peers and colleagues.
 
Job pressures and competition keep too many of us in our cubicles from the moment we step off the elevator to the minute we run out the door. One Wall Street investment banker I knew regularly ordered in pizza for his group, as a way to bring the team together. This was no “free” lunch: pizza was ordered (and he happily paid for it each week) on the condition that no one could eat alone. It doesn’t take much to break down communication barriers and build team rapport. In twenty minutes you can accomplish more than consuming a slice or two of pizza— you can build relationships.
 
You need to be strategic and sometimes rather selective in which work-related networking events you choose to attend, but don’t apply a universal no to opportunities to share your knowledge with colleagues beyond the radius of your cubicle, or to being further informed of developments in your chosen profession.
 
There are many, many, many ways to limit your career opportunities; take “no to networking” off that list.
 
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of our Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com
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Motivating Millennial Lawyers: More About Possibility Than Precedent

 By Aimee Hansen

Lawyer

Image via Shutterstock

“Millennials bring new ideas and expectations to the workplace, as did the generations before them,” states a 2016 Thomson-Reuters report on The Generational Shift in Legal Departments. But, as the story goes, senior lawyers are resisting those changes.

By 2025, Millennials will comprise 75% of the workforce. The real question is not if change will happen, but how it will unfold.

What Do Millennials Want?

“Working round the clock for high pay and status is not what motivates many young lawyers today” states the FT, noting, “the partnership track has ruptured.”

Millennials work preferences are characterized as valuing mentorship (vs bossing) and collaboration (vs hierarchy), wishing to be involved in processes and decision-making, receiving regular feedback, having opportunities for growth, working for a firm that aligns to their values, and desiring work/life flexibility.

According to an article in the National Law Review, managing Millennials “means an almost 180-degree change in the way associates have been managed in the past.”

With Millennials, It’s Not About Precedent

Acknowledging the resistance of those who have paid their dues, “Old Lady Lawyer” Jill Switzer notes “The problem with the philosophy of ‘suck it up, this is the way it’s always been’ is that it doesn’t seem to really work with millennials.”

The Thomson-Reuters report agrees, “…in-house leaders must prepare to oversee junior lawyers who will not accept doing things a certain way simply because that’s what has been done before, whether it’s the billable hour or using a more formal tone in communications.”

So what can senior lawyers do to motivate Millennial associates?

Make Mentorship Your Management Style

The first step is to meet the individual in front of you.

“I think we all ought to be sensitive to the concept that stereotypes don’t always play out in individual people, and individual people are where it’s at,” Co-chair of the American Bar Association Business Law Fellows Committee and King & Spalding partner Dixie Johnson told theglasshammer. “I personally don’t ever start out a relationship thinking okay, you’re a millennial – here’s how I should relate to you. And I don’t think it’s healthy to do that.”

A Deloitte study found that Millennials who intended to stay with their current organization were more than twice as likely to have a mentor (68 percent) than not (32 percent), but only six percent of corporate legal departments have a formal mentoring program.

If yours doesn’t yet, then consider making mentorship your management style.

“I don’t think of ‘inclusive mentorship’ as a new thing that is needed by Millennials in a way that was not needed by prior generations,” says Johnson. “I just think that my job is to be a mentor and I should look for opportunities to help people who work with me. Part of my job as a senior lawyer is to train younger lawyers about what they need to do really well as lawyers…in the middle of all the work we do.”

Motivate with Context

As stated in The National Law Review, Millennials “are not content to receive a directive such as, ‘Research a particular point of law and prepare an annotated brief on the subject.’ Instead, they want to know about the case, why the research is important for the case and how it will be used to benefit the case.”

Millennials wish to learn and grow through the experience of doing the work, as opposed to just get the job done. They are “Generation Why.” The value in whatever they are being asked to contribute needs to be explicitly connected to the whole, both to the overall project and their personal growth.

“I do think young lawyers who enter the profession recognize some of the work is tedious and not as exciting, but you can learn from everything that comes your way,“ Johnson says. “It’s on us, the more senior lawyers, to help people understand what they can learn from projects.”

Make Feedback Work For You, Too

Growing up in a digital world where everything is “available at their fingertips”, Millennials desire (and expect) regular feedback (not just performance reviews). Iterative feedback may take more time, but it may also deliver more fluid performance improvements while building more mutual respect.

“I do think that we are more successful as managers when we give more feedback.” says Johnson. “I find that when I label a conversation with ‘I want to give you some feedback’  (eg. on relating to clients, on speech patterns) young lawyers are hungry to hear it, and they do take it well. They want to go back and think about it.”

Lead the One You’re With

Thomson-Reuters found that other generations see Millennials more so as “hoppers” and “disloyal” than they see themselves. 76% of Gen X and Boomers thought Millennials would stay at their current job for less than 5 years. 38% of Millennials intended to leave while 47% intended to stay. Still, a longitudinal study found a third of lawyers had changed jobs once only three years out of law school.

Resisting the assertion that job-jumping is a new trend among associate lawyers, Johnson states, “It’s important for more senior lawyers to recognize that part of the cost structure that is built into their firm is that they will spend a lot of time training somebody who then will go off to do other things. And I think that’s a good thing, frankly. At one point I counted up 40 people (that I helped train) that were in different spots in the federal government, and that makes me feel great.”

“I think approaching a work relationship with the reality that you’re both there by choice, and it may not last forever, is just the reality of it,” says Johnson. ”And it has been for a long time.”

Embrace Change

Millennials bring technology into firms, as a lens through which they’ve always interacted with the world. They are also more globally minded  and gender equal in their outlook, and will offer that to the workplace.

“That’s a really exciting thing about having young people who have really not known anything other than technology joining our teams,” says Johnson. ”They will bring to the teams technical advances and a way of thinking about projects that can helps us do a better job.”

This will also change how lawyers work, in a way that brings greater gender equality. The number of legal employees working remotely is rising. The FT points out that the firm Mr. Beedle now employs lawyers on a “consultancy basis”, meaning “full control over hours they work in exchange for a fluctuating salary.”

In order to stay, Millennials need to feel as though they are being valued and developed as leaders, and making a difference at work. In order for managers to motivate the next generation of lawyers, it will require a perspective less bent on precedent and more open to possibility.

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Are After-Work Drinks Sexist in the UK?

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after-work-drinks

Guest Contributed by Beth Leslie

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK’s Labour Party, recently sparked outrage by labelling after-work socialising as sexist because it “benefits men who don’t feel the need to be at home looking after their children and it discriminates against women who will want to, obviously, look after the children”.

In one fell swoop, he offended everyone. Single women railed at the anachronistic association of all women with housewifery. Mothers were furious by the stereotyped assumption that they are automatically the primary caregivers. Men were offended by the outdated notion that they don’t want to spend time with their children. The British as a nation became hysterical that this left-winged bearded fellow might be trying to take their Thursday night drink away from them.

But then someone pointed out that Carolyn Fairbairn, the first female head of the Confederation of British Industry, had made similar criticisms about after-work culture. Female journalists at the New Yorker and The Independent voiced their agreement too. So is Corbyn actually correct? Are after-work events discriminatory against women?

The Activity vs. The Hour

The debate is particularly problematic because “after-work socialising” means different things to different people. It could be a formal networking event. It could be a casual cocktail with colleagues. Or, as the corporate packages offered by 41% of lap-dancing clubs attest; it could be a client meeting in a strip club.

So while Corbyn’s comments focused on the discriminatory timing of after-work events, many feminist campaigners are more concerned with the nature of these activities. Donald Trump’s recently leaked boasts about sexually harassing women indicates how heartbreakingly common workplace harassment is. 52% of women in the UK say they’ve experienced it, and such harassment is often exacerbated by after-work socialising because it usually involves alcohol and a blurring of the lines between professional and personal life. This problem can exist even within formal networking events, where women complain that many men respond to their networking with flirtation, and where even companies as prominent as Microsoft are curating an environment of objectification by hiring ‘booth babes’.

At the same time, opting out of after-work sessions comes at a cost. Clients are discovered and deals are made at networking events. Bosses give praise and promotions to subordinates they’ve become pally with after a few pints. And co-workers who socialise together build bonds and friendships that drop-outs can feel excluded from.

So yes, there are many aspects of after-work socialising that can be seen as inherently sexist. But the answer cannot be banning all after-work events. Not only would it be impossible to enforce, it is worryingly illiberal. Women-only networking events, meanwhile, seem to partition off the problem more than they solve it.

Businesses Need to Lead a Culture Change

Eliminating sexism from business requires the elevation of the idea that it is not only immoral, but unprofitable. The spate of lawsuits by female professionals who consider a corporate insistence on conducting business in strip clubs detrimental to their career prospects should be encouraged. Companies which engage in sexist practices should be named and shamed on regular and social media. Managers should take complaints of sexual harassment seriously and punish offenders severely. Individuals should be encouraged to speak up when they witness or experience misogyny in the workplace.

It may seem quixotic at first glance, but each hardened opinion contributes to the snowball of social change. After all, most businesses can’t afford to turn off female talent, and even fewer can afford to lose female customers.

The After-Hours Element

Corbyn and his backers, however, appeared to suggest that even the most progressive event is discriminatory if it takes place outside of work hours because of childcare commitments. The problem with this is that it muddles two distinct concepts. Holding an event after hours is not anti-women but anti-parent. However, because of gender stereotypes, working mothers do end up carrying more of the burden than working fathers.

It is the second concept which society and businesses have a duty to eliminate. For companies, this should take the form of implementing and encouraging parental equality policies, such as shared parental leave. Similarly, more work should be done on a social level to equalise the attitudes towards working fathers and working mothers.

Yet turning the plight of an ambitious parent who also wants to spend the evening with their kids into a feminist issue is a mistake, because it further entrenches gender stereotypes about women as homemakers. Ultimately, having children is a choice in the way your gender is not, and exclusion from after-work events because you choose to spend time with your children, however frustrating, is morally distinct from being excluded from after-work events because of sexist perceptions or actions against you.

Advocating for a workplace that is more parent-friendly is a worthy fight and it should not be a sexist one.

Beth Leslie writes graduate careers advice for Inspiring Interns, a recruitment agency which specialises in matching candidates to their dream internship. Check out their graduate jobs London listings for roles, or if you’re looking to hire an intern, have a look at their innovative Video CVs.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer

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What Are Your Mental Models and How Do They Hold You Back?

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 By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Models

Image via Shutterstock

When I am coaching within the first 30 mins, I hear mental models and worldviews come out of every client’s mouth. I also hear it in friends and social situations whether I try to or not. Mental models are the paradigms that we walk around with, the inner voice and inner theater that plays inside our heads and is the biggest enhancer or constrainer of our careers and of our lives. This inner voice is built by what we were told as kids by our families, our observations on what we could and could not get away, as well as what society messages us overtly and implicitly.

The point is, if you can understand the phrases that control you and can override the “way it is” and ask yourself why do i believe x, y, z is how it has to be, then great progress can be made.

A typical example of a common mental models that might be standing in your way is:
– Trust is earned. This is obviously a righteous sentence that many of us agree with but at what point are you not trusting your bosses and team and how is that preventing optimal results?

So, how do you begin to change this? It is engrained and hard to shift but entirely possible to do so. Surface it with a coach, understand how it serves you and how it perhaps gets in your way. Does it get you to where you want to go?

I also personally have found reading articles that i agree and entirely disagree with, are entirely helpful to me personally on issues that I know I am drawn to and that are my kryptonite. By opening my mind to seeing things from other people’s angles and viewpoints, I can add to my knowledge on the subject (I tend to go for academic rather than opinion based reading) but also ensure that i am not in an echo chamber of people who believe the same thing as I do.

It is a journey and it does take time, but investigating and exploring what you think and why you think it, can be not only career enhancing as you become a better leader but if you allow it, it can be a gift.

To explore how your mental models are holding you back, book an exploratory coaching call with Nicki at 646 6882318

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Does Hollywood’s failure to pass the Bechdel test have a negative effect on the workplace?

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hollywood-signGuest contributed by Beth Leslie

When critiquing the feminist credentials of a film, a good place to start is the Bechdel Test. To pass, a movie must fulfil three simple criteria: It has two named female characters, who talk to each other about something other than a man. Just under half of all films fail.

For comparison, when IMD compiled a list of films that botched the “Reverse-Bechdel Test” they managed to think of four.

Of course, blatant sexism in any aspect of life is distressing in and of itself. But media is influential. How much of an impact does a lack of female investment bankers, superheroes and whip-wielding archaeologists have on the career aspirations of real-life women?

Movies Influence Us

Movies matter. Study after study shows how the film industry can shape and influence politics, constructions of cultural identity and social change. How on-screen women are portrayed, therefore, affects real-life ideas about real-life women.

The Bechdel Test highlights the industry’s shortcomings in this regard: on-screen, women appear half as much as men and speak significantly less than them. They are rarely the lead or even co-lead, and they are over-sexualised and disproportionately young.

Over and over again, therefore, we watch men being dominant and women being marginalised. The idea becomes cemented in our mind, so that when we actually experience men disproportionately directing discussions or taking on positions of responsibility we accept it the norm.

We learn to associate masculinity with leadership and women with “sexy lamps”. When it comes to hiring and promotion decisions, we are already primed to see men as influencers, winners and go-getters. We want our high-fliers to be heroes, so we compare candidates against our established notions of what a hero looks like.

We see quintessential ‘good guys’ – the James Bonds, the Tony Starks – repeatedly sexualise the women they work with and think that such behaviour is acceptable. We search for examples of heroines who are over thirty-five or intellectually superior and, finding none, disparage experience and intellect as valid indicators of a women’s worth.

Women Don’t Work in Films

Work and the workplace is often represented in films, and it is usually depicted as an unrealistically masculine space. Male characters are notably more likely to have an identifiable job than female characters. They are also substantially more likely to occupy senior roles – women make up just 3% of fictional C-Suite executives. Of the 129 influential family films identified by the above study, not one showed a female character at the top of the financial, legal, journalism or political sector. (In contrast, there were 45 depictions of powerful male politicians alone.)

Gender stereotypes are endemic in film. In the hospital wards of Hollywood, 89% of nurses are women but only 10% of doctors are. The number of female engineers, soldiers, and officials is so low as to almost be negligible. The suggestion is therefore that women aren’t workers, and they certainly aren’t successful workers. By associating career progression so strongly with men, the movie industry depicts working itself is a “masculine” trait. Considering we learn about the world through media, this is disturbing.

Of course, women are underrepresented in senior positions and masculine professions, but not to the extent they are on-screen. This suggests that Hollywood is not so much reflecting reality as reflecting a conception of reality where different genders conform to markedly different life paths. By exaggerating existing stereotypes, it amplifies the pressure to conform to said stereotypes.

We Are Limited by Our Expectations

We grow up watching TV, and it influences our dreams and ambitions. Little girls seem particularly susceptible to emulating the actresses they see on screen – one study found that admiring a star whose characters’ smoke vastly increases the risk of becoming a smoker. Such admiration is particularly problematic if many of the characters we identify with are deficient in ambition and career success.

We cannot be what we cannot see, and the lack of professional representations of women, particularly in the boardroom or STEM industries, makes it harder for young women to conceptualise themselves as such figures. Movies show girls a version of happiness which involves playing the sidekick of a successful man, so women who want to be happy learn to copy this formula. Movies show young girls visions of themselves as pretty PAs or charming caregivers, and suggest that this is what women should be.

There is a solution: put more women in the film industry. When women create films, they invariably pass the Bechdel Test (and other measures of gender equality) with flying colours. Unfortunately, sexism has worked its wrecking hand here too: just 7% of directors, 20% of writers and 23% of producers are women.

Beth Leslie writes graduate careers advice for Inspiring Interns, a recruitment agency which specialises in matching candidates to their dream internship. Check out their graduate jobs London listings for roles, or if you’re looking to hire an intern, have a look at their innovative Video CVs.

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

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Being a Role Model Isn’t Enough, Stop Being Sexist!

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Two-thirds-of-women-in-fund-management-have-experience-sexism-finds-FTfm-surveyBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

My consistent discovery in my ten years of this work is that women are often serious perpetrators when it comes to sexism against women, albeit quite unconsciously by buying into stereotypes and deferring all authority to any male on most subjects.

Bell Hooks says it best in her excerpt of a book called The Will to Change about why the system of patriarchy is an ugly one that if reinforced by whoever, we will never make progress.

She makes the point which escapes most people which is until we stop denying that we live in an underlying system that stacks the cards against gentle boys in favor of endorsing a tougher, rougher version which as its worst is ‘toxic masculinity’ then we can do whatever we want, but it will be a lose/lose for all concerned.

So what are 3 things you can do today to walk the talk of “Being the change that you want to see in the world?”
  • Break stereotypes when and where you see them being flung around. Men aren’t all left brain, women aren’t all right brain and that Mars and Venus nonsense is insulting.
  • Be yourself and speak from the heart and on brave days speak truth to power as safely as you can.
  • Play the game but only to play enough to change the game so that tomorrow and the next day, the game is less ridiculous for others.
What are 3 things that you have to stop doing?
  • Don’t give a wider behavioral range to your sons with a boys will be boys attitude yet narrowly confine your daughters to defined and different behavioral criteria.
  • Don’t put up with casual sexism at work or home- Casual sexism or micro aggressions are often invisible and so part of the culture that you dont even realize that it is happening. Learn how to spot it and disrupt it on the spot.
  • Don’t regale every boy and man you see with the authority to be the expert, or even to have an opinion on everything. Mansplaining is boring and happens because we all allow men to think if they read a sentence of a topic that you have to listen to them even if you have a Phd in the subject.

Not everyone has the same appetite to be a change agent and that’s ok. But, please know that if you are colluding then you are part of the problem. Something to think about today!

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Don’t Let Stereotype Threat Hold You Back

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 Guest contributed by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris

stereotype

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The belief that certain activities are “appropriate” for women and certain careers are not is the result of stereotype threat, pure and simple. If a woman believes women are good at psychology but not computer science, she is more likely to major in psychology than computer science. If she believes women are good at personal relationships but not finance, she is more likely to take a job in human resources than the treasury department. And if she believes women are not good at negotiating but are good at administrative organization, she is more unlikely to volunteer for a major merger or acquisition and more likely to offer to organize a new filing system.

We recognize that the entire subject of gender-appropriate activities is a highly sensitive one. Pointing out the gender segregation in college majors—85 percent of health service majors are women but only 19 percent of engineering majors are—and occupations—80 percent of social workers are women but only 15 percent of computer programmers are—can quickly be interpreted as a form of “blaming the victim.” Pointing out gender segregation in careers can be taken as an attempt to hold women responsible for having lower status and lower-paying jobs than do men.

We want to make clear that we don’t think some college majors are better than others, that some occupations are better than others, or that some career roles are better than others. There are multiple factors affecting women’s decisions with respect to all of these areas, and we have no interest in making judgments about anyone’s actual choices. What we do have an interest in, however, is making you aware of the segregation by gender that pervades America’s college majors, occupations, and career responsibilities. We believe that if you are sensitive to this segregation, you will be less likely to place limitations and restraints on your own work-related attitudes, choices, and behavior simply because you are a woman. We don’t want women to be more like men, but we do want women to believe and behave as though they can do anything in their careers that men can do—and do it just as well, if not better.

Forty percent of college-educated women and men would need to change their occupations to achieve gender parity across all United States occupations. This occupational gender segregation is most often attributed to “demand-side” influences, that is, employers’ decisions about who they will hire and who they will make feel welcome. There is some evidence that “supply-side” factors also play a role. This means that women’s and men’s personal decisions about where (and at what) they want to work contribute to this segregation. Researchers from McGill University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania looked at the jobs comparably qualified woman and men applied for after having attended an elite, one-year international MBA program.

Their study focused on three factors influencing a person’s choice of a job: how the applicant values the specific rewards offered by the job, whether the applicant identifies with the job, and whether the applicant expects an application for that job will result in a job offer. The study examined how each of these factors affected women’s and men’s applications to work in the fields of finance, consulting, and general management.

The researchers found no differences in the monetary and other values women and men assigned to these jobs. Nevertheless, women were far less likely to apply for jobs in finance and consulting and far more likely to apply for general management positions than were men. The researchers found this gender disparity in applications was due almost entirely to women not “identifying” with finance jobs because of the strong masculine stereotypes associated with them or with consulting jobs because of anticipated difficulties with “work–life balance.” The researchers concluded that the low number of women in the fields of finance and consulting is largely the result of women’s “gender role socialization,” that is, the stereotypes they held about themselves and particular careers. They also concluded, however, that when a woman can overcome exceptionally high barriers to female participation early in her career, this may actually reduce her “gendered behavior” in subsequent stages of her career.

Gendered behavior is behavior that is shaped or caused by internalized gender stereotypes. Take one well-documented phenomenon: men typically apply for jobs when they meet 60 percent of the job criteria, but women typically don’t apply until they feel they meet 100 percent of the criteria. This is gendered behavior, pure and simple, and it is due in all likelihood to stereotype threat: women’s belief that they are just not as good at particular tasks as men and, therefore, their fear that if they are not fully qualified for the jobs for which they are applying, they are likely to fail. This same fear too frequently causes some women to choose assignments and positions that involve less risk, lower visibility, fewer challenges, less responsibility and less external pressure than those chosen by their male colleagues. If you are in a traditionally male work environment, there are lots of people and situations at work that will hold you back simply because you are a woman. You are as talented, prepared, and capable as the men, so be your own best fan and avoid thinking negatively about yourself or what you are capable of.

This article is adapted with permission from Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris, Copyright © 2016 by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris. Published by Bibliomotion, Inc.

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

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Pivoting to a New Career

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CV / ResumeBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Dust off your resume and update it for a pivot to a new career.

When was the last time that you looked at your resume? Do you even have one? People often do not think about their resume or CV until they are actively applying for jobs and even then there is usually only one version.

Would it be terrible to have more than one version depending on which direction you want to go. Chances are you had a multitude of experiences that you can shape into categories. If you didnt strictly work in operations, can you sit and think about tasks and projects that were operations based? How would that translate into a narrative? If there is in all honesty very little there, then you can make a call about whether you truly want to pivot into that area and decide what you can do to increase your experience, pick up skills and apply at appropriate levels for jobs.

Success is the end goal. Do not forget that! And, you only have one life so just because you spend many years in one function doesn’t mean you have to do it forever.

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