Six Reasons Why Women Execs Should Volunteer

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show-of-hands featuredBy Jennifer Davis

As a professional woman, you’ve probably dreamed of making an impact in the community, beyond your role as an industry leader or executive. “If I only I the time,” you might have told yourself, “I’d tackle world poverty. Or start a nonprofit foundation. Or work on a cure for cancer.”

Indeed, women are the nation’s most prevalent volunteers, with more than 28 percent giving their time, compared to 22 percent of men. Part of the reason may be that women intuitively understand that their responsibilities extend beyond payroll and profits. “Women are hard-wired to be engaged in their communities,” says Dr. Val Hannemann, a psychologist in Flagstaff, Ariz. “Volunteering connects women. They share, they compare, and they adopt new strategies to make a difference in the world.”And let’s not forget, most volunteers are recruited by volunteers and so women have a tendency to invite their female networks to engage in their projects.

Yet the reality is that many women who volunteer their time work part-time or not at all. In fact, women who are primarily care-givers or homemakers can become “professional volunteers.”On the other hand, time can be a major issue for professional women, who may have less flexibility in their schedules or priorities. If you’re like a lot of working women, you’re probably already juggling family, children, and your health —in addition to a demanding job. Yet if you haven’t carved out the time to volunteer, it may be time to reconsider. Yes, making the world a better place is important for its own sake. But it’s also a critical part of your professional development strategy. Here are six reasons why you should make the time:

  • You’ll build your experience base

    Volunteer work can play an important role in helping you get the experience you want in your career. These opportunities provide great opportunities to learn new skills, interact with mentors, and build your portfolio. And, of course, you can list volunteer opportunities on your resume and LinkedIn profile, alongside your paid work.

  • You’ll expand your network

    The old adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know” is true. Furthermore, it is really about who knows you. Volunteer opportunities allow you to build relationships outside your normal circle of friends and colleagues, helping you to broaden your network of folks who have had positive interactions with you and are inclined to think of you when opportunities arise.

  • You’ll broaden your perspective

    By working with a different set of people and challenges, you’ll inevitably widen your perspective. Volunteering can pull you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to tackle new problems from different angles. It can also give you profound new perspectives that can shape both your approach to life and the way you show up on the job.

  • You’ll hone your leadership skills

    As a volunteer, you can do things that an employee can’t. You can work outside the organization chart. You can seek out new opportunities for growth and involvement. And you can make connections between organizations. With the right volunteer opportunity, you’ll gain experience setting a vision, developing strategies, raising funds, motivating people, and reconciling conflicting perspectives—all essential leadership skills. And you’ll have the opportunity to practice those skills in a safe environment—and then apply them back at work to make yourself more visible and indispensable.

  • You’ll position yourself for promotion

    A volunteer opportunity outside of work is a great way to demonstrate your readiness for the C-suite. By sitting on the board of a local nonprofit, managing a community-based initiative, or organizing a volunteer program for your own corporation, you’ll be required to tackle many of the same issues faced by top executives within your company. Moreover, taking on a leadership volunteer role “send(s) the signal that you aspire to leadership potential,” says leadership coach Muriel Maignan Wilkins. Indeed, taking on the right volunteer opportunity can earn you recognition as a leader—helping you to get the promotion you desire.

  • You’ll do good for others—and for yourself

    Last, but not least, volunteering is vital to the health of our communities. You already bring so many skills to the table, and using them for the greater good makes the world a better place. At the same time, serving others gets you out of your own head and puts your own worries and problems in perspective. Research has shown that volunteering helps people feel more socially connected, wards off depression, and may even contribute to better physical health like lower blood pressure and improved memory. So, do yourself some good by doing good!

Jennifer Davis is Chief Marketing Officer of Leyard and Vice President, Marketing and Product Strategy for Planar Systems

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Coming Out, Connecting and Finding Allies

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LGBT flag featuredBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

This week and this month on theglasshammer.com we are celebrating LGBT women at work and the Allies that champion and support them. We do this series every year in June since we aim to inspire professional women at work and if you are a gay woman and are out or thinking about coming out then we want to make sure you know you are not the only lesbian executive around. Much like the broader mission of theglasshammer.com, our career advice today in this column is to help you find sponsors, mentors and champions so that you can build your network and connect with people who can ultimately help you. To connect with anyone, both parties need to know a little about each other and build a little trust and that is the number one reason to come out at work. Studies show that if you are not able to bring your full self to work then it is going to be harder to perform, engage and generally stay motivated.

Theglasshammer and our consulting arm Evolved Employer did comprehensive research back in 2012 in both NY and London with LGBT women and one of the conclusions was sometimes it is gender bias that is still preventing us from advancing than our LGBT status. Read the US and the UK research here- some nuances to think about.

I also did a piece of work with my a colleague Dr. Frank Golom at a leading Fortune 100 firm on stereotype threat for LGBT people at work (read about that here) and a major career strategy that we recommend from the research is that you need to make sure people know who you are and what you can do at work instead of any preconceived notions they might have. They have these notions for many reasons ( such as the media portrayals, narrow experience of actual gay people or knowing one gay woman and then thinking every other gay person they meet is the same and gender role conformity expectations depending on how you show up on the expression spectrum). Sure, it can be super tedious to educate others all day, every day, but to some extent everyone has to do it albeit, the more non-dominant social identities you have the more it seems you have to educate.

Career advice? Seek out internal and external networking groups if you feel like it will help you formally and informally. It is not for everyone, just as not everyone wants to join a women’s network but if you like to share experiences and seek situational advice from people who have been there then it could be a good fit. Out Leadership have recently formed a women’s group headed up by Stephanie Sandberg. Out and Equal are a fabulous resource also and there are many other groups (GWN and Stonewall in London for example) that host events and get togethers. Many firms have LGBTQIA networks You might find a mentor or at the very least friendship there and remember the A stands for Allies and Allies can sponsor and champion you in your career. We help develop LGBTA networks as well as women’s networks from mission to structure to actual content so contact us if you are leading one or are trying to start one at your firm.

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you wish to hire an executive coach to help you navigate your career

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LGBT Leadership Update: Rising Corporate Activism and Executive Pride

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LGBT flag featuredBy Aimee Hansen

With June, we turn to Pride Month on the diversity calendar, so let’s focus our spotlight to recent progress on advancing LGBT inclusive business cultures and LGBT executive leadership.

Corporate Activism Defends LGBT Rights

Recently, state law setbacks to the LGBT community (and human rights) have one positive side effect: they’ve led to a collective backlash from companies and employers who have united to defend LGBT rights.

Repeatedly, companies have been asserting to state lawmakers that upholding LGBT rights is a necessary condition for attracting and maintaining the best talent for businesses.

Since North Carolina passed an anti-discrimination law that failed to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, over 200 business leaders – including CEOs and executives of major companies such as Apple, Bank of America, Citibank, Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, and more – have signed an open letter to the state governor calling for a repeal to the “HB 2” law, stating that “such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business”.

Canceled plans by Paypal, Deutsche Bank and performance artists are estimated to have cost the state “tens of millions in dollars of losses”. Meanwhile, companies also joined in activism with an open letter to state leaders in Mississippi to repeal “HB 1523”, which gives individuals or organizations license to discriminate against LGBT people based on religious justification.

In the Harvard Business Review, author Andrew Winston points out that business has been ahead of the public curve when it comes to LGBT rights. Winston notes that over half of Fortune 500 companies were offering domestic partner benefits ten years ago when only 35% of Americans supported gay marriage (and 55% opposed it), and that today corporate adoption of anti-discrimination policies based on gender identity (66% of companies) outpaces public acceptance of transgender rights.

In the case of LGBT rights, Winston argues the moral imperative of non-discrimination in the workplace and the economic motivation to thrive with diverse customers are so understandably linked that business is “pro-actively influencing societal norms.”

LGBT Diversity Associated with Stock Performance

Influencing policy is part of the equation, but building an LGBT-inclusive culture is another thing. When LGBT employees do not feel free to be themselves, when they feel they have to “hide in plain sight”, it’s proven costly not only to employees but to business.

When diversity is celebrated and genuinely fostered, not only individual productivity but company productivity seems to benefit. According to a recent report by Credit Suisse, the stock of companies that exhibit LGBT diversity outperform the stock of companies that do not.

LGBT diversity was factored by companies that have openly LGBT leaders and senior management, are voted as leading LGBT employers, or have many employees in local LGBT business networks.

The LGBT basket of 270 companies outperformed the MSCI ACWI by 3% annually since 2010, as well as outperforming a custom basket of companies in US, Europe and Australia by 1.4% annually.

The correlation of LGBT diversity with performance is important, since according to the report, 72% of senior LGBT executives say they have not come out at work, which is not surprising when it’s still legal to fire someone based on sexual orientation in over twenty states and based on gender identity in over thirty states.

Celebrating LGBT Executive Role Models

Celebrating diversity at the very top, for the first time in the three years since its introduction, a woman topped the 2015 list of the 100 Most Powerful LGBT Executives in the World, named by OUTstanding and the Financial Times.

Inga Beale is the first female CEO of Lloyd’s of London and openly bi-sexual. As she told The Guardian, “It’s not about me. It’s about what you do for other people. For me, it’s so important because you need these role models.”

According to OUTstanding as reported in Entreprenuer, recognition is critical since closeted LGBT employees are 70% more likely to leave a company within the first three years.

The list of LGBT power executives, for which activism outside of the workplace is also taken into account, included several from the finance world, including Accenture’s Sander van‘t Noordende (10), Citi’s Bob Annibale (28), Goldman Sach’s Gavin Wills (36), and PwC’s Andy Woodfield (78) and Mark Gossington (82).

Speaking to the inclusive culture fostered at Accenture, Sander van’t Noordende has said, “Only when people are comfortable in their workplace will they be able to get the best out of themselves,” advising individuals to not only value their difference, but also find a company that values their difference too.

Promoting LGBT C-Suite Leadership

Stanford is also stepping up to encourage aspiring LGBT executives to value their difference. Stanford Graduate School of Business introduced the Stanford LGBT Executive Leadership Program, which will first take place in late July 2016 and is accepting applications until June 24th.

With a focus on fostering authentic and impactful senior LGBT leadership and network building, Stanford states, “This is the only Executive Education program of its kind offered by a leading business school to address the significant gap in leadership for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the C-suite.”

According to program co-director Tom Wurster, the one-week training is ideally aimed at “the LGBT executive with a minimum of 10 years professional experience and 5 years of management experience who is preparing to take on more significant leadership roles.”

More visible leadership within more significant leadership roles – out and proud and C-Suite is the call.

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Things to Negotiate for….Besides More Money

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Smartly dressed young women shaking hands in a business meeting at office deskYou’re no stranger to the idea of salary negotiation when it comes to career advancement, but that’s just one of the fringe benefits up for discussion at the bargaining table on your road to the C-suite. You can’t go in assuming that certain perks like maternity leave or promotions are a given. Be prepared. One of the most effective tools at your disposal is your bargaining power.

Be Bold

Sheryl Sandberg discusses many of these points in her book, “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.” Don’t be afraid to go to the table knowing what you want for the future of your career. Take charge, as Sheryl writes:

“Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.”

That doesn’t mean you should storm through the office door and make outrageous demands, expecting them to be met instantly. Approach the situation with the right information and engage in tactful and professional discussion. Not sure exactly what that means or what those negotiations should entail? Here are six topics to keep in mind, and how you should approach them.

1. Flex Time

In the modern workplace, there are actually more people than you think working outside of the office with more flexible, nontraditional schedules. In a 2013 survey by the research group Catalyst, four out of every five respondents holding graduate-level degrees said they had some kind of work flexibility with their employer – that’s a whopping 81 percent.

In order to secure that type of perk at your next position, you’ve got to go in knowing exactly what you want from the flex time – both the when and the why. Your employer is going to be more keen to accept this stipulation if you have a detailed plan heading into negotiations. Be sure that you’ve cross-referenced any existing flex-time policy with the HR department to cover all your bases.

2. Professional and Personal Development

Make sure your future employer knows about your interest in professional and personal development. Continuing to learn and grow in your chosen profession keeps your skills innovative and creative, which will enrich the working environment for those around you as well. In fact, this type of incentive is among one of the most sought-after additions to an employment package by millennials. Consider asking about family friendly programs that encourage a work/life-balance, one of the most important points for Gen Xers.

3. Promotions

If you find yourself facing your annual review, consider your promotion options. Don’t be afraid to demonstrate how you’ve added value to the company, and why you should be considered for compensation.
Of course this doesn’t just magically happen one day by telling your boss you’re a rock star and should be paid accordingly. You need to work on cultivating a relationship and proving you are a valuable member of the company – these real bosses will give it to you straight.

In fact, a study done by Accenture in 2011 found that 85 percent of employees out of the 3,400 companies it surveyed got something – whether a large increase in salary to some kind of other incentive – simply by asking for a raise.

4. Maternity/Paternity Leave

Unfortunately, this is still an issue. In all the developed nations of the world, the U.S. is currently the only one that does not offer federally mandated parent leave. In OECD’s 2014 family database document, America literally has 0s across the board. You are not guaranteed anything.

Luckily most companies that want to retain talented staff recognize the importance of maternity/paternity leave. You could piggy-back your discussion concerning flex-time as well, and increase your chances of extending time at home with your new addition.

5. Vacation Time

Other than maternity leave, vacation time is also extremely important. Again in the U.S., the average employee has less vacation time than most other advanced economies in the world. Typically, a worker is only entitled to 10 days of paid vacation and six holidays, but even these are not guaranteed – quite different than the 30 days in France or 20 in New Zealand.

As you well know, this is where your bargaining power and value to the company can come in handy to secure more than the 10 days. Use tact, and also offer solutions for the time you are requesting to be away For example, tell your boss “I’ll be out of the office, but regularly checking my emails.

It’s important that you take advantage of complete time away from the office for a recharge. You’ll be more of an asset to your company when you return re-energized and refreshed.

6. Big Project Participation

If you really want to put yourself out there and be bold, ask to swim in the deep water, rub shoulders with the executives and request to work on the interesting projects that are happening in your company. This will help you get noticed, and you can also take the opportunity to cultivate mentoring relationships at the leadership and management level.

By Sarah Landrum

Sarah Landrum is a Penn State graduate, marketing specialist, freelance writer and the career expert behind Punched Clocks.
 
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Making sure you are in the running for a promotion

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women shaking handsIf you are lucky enough to work for a really great company that has a robust, unbiased, transparent talent process then you can probably skip this post. But wait, not so fast, how can you tell if your firm is good at ensuring that the best talent regardless of any other factor gets promoted?

I can think of three ways to heighten your chances

  • Ask what the process is
  • Ask what you have to do specifically to get to the next level/beyond
  • Make sure you have sponsors to broaden and deepen your portfolio of work because women still mostly get promoted on past performance as opposed to some men truly get promoted on what others think they will be capable of growing into (future potential not fact- yes this still happens)

Here is the kicker. I have done several consulting projects with women’s networks and I even wrote a Masters thesis at Columbia University on how networks can be formally connected to the talent process (sadly, often they are not related to a direct promotional path and interestingly this if often due to the resistance of the women inside the network-which in part is often due to the reason the network exists is to provide a container for shared experiences). So, if you want your membership of a network to be part of your strategy to advance, then make sure it is doing that and ways to tangibly use it include access to senior management, find a sponsor and more that we have covered in the past 4-5 weeks in this column.

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire a coach to help you navigate your career

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Mansplaining: It’s Time to Interrupt

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Business meeting with women and menMansplaining. If you’ve lived and breathed in this world as a woman, you’ve experienced it. If you work in a male-dominated office, it might be served up as a daily side with your coffee.

Recently, Chicago Tribune workplace columnist Rex Huppke declared: “Mansplaining — whether you like the term or not — is real. That’s not up for debate.”

Huppke called it “a slow drip of sexism”. How much is your office environment dripping with it?

What is Mansplaining, exactly?

In The Salon, Benjamin Hart argued that the term “mansplaining” lost its potency, as well as its real utility within gender dynamics discussions, when it became popularly used and broadly defined as a man explaining something to a women in a condescending or patronizing manner.

Hart asserts it’s morphed into an “increasingly vague catchall expression” of “men saying things to, or about, women.”

“Mansplain” is thrown about liberally. Jimmy Kimmel mansplained speech coaching to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Financial Times recently referred to the EU referendum in the UK as at risk of becoming a “giant exercise in ‘mansplaining’”, due to media domination by male voices. Women called for Trump to mansplain his Clinton “women card” accusation. Even a collection of mansplaining moments shows a diversity of takes on what it is.

Merriam Webster takes a hard line on its specific definition: “when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he’s talking to does.”

Other than a sinking feeling in your stomach and increasing desire to find a conversational back door, what are the tell-tale signs of mansplaining?

1) It feels like a “manologue”

One sure-fire sign you’re being mansplained to: you’re not speaking or discussing. Instead, you are being spoken at or spoken over, often for a frustrating duration of time.

Mansplaining carries a trademark air of wisdom-wielding, knowledge-imparting, and time-taking. You may also have the feeling of being verbally cut-across.

Mansplaining, in a two-step conversational dominance maneuver, often follows immediately after manterruption – “unnecessary interruption of a woman by a man”.

A 2014 informal experiment by empirical linguist Kieran Snyder in a tech workplace found that in conversations of four or more, men interrupted at twice the rate women did, and were three times more likely to interrupt women than men. (Women interrupt women, too.)

Dr. Arin N. Reeves also conducted an observational study across 41 hours of meetings, calls, and panel discussions. Not only did Reeves observe that men interrupt far more, but also that 89.3% of men’s interruptions of women (and only 42.6% of men’s interruptions of men) were intrusive interruptions – “intentionally or unintentionally usurping the speaker’s turn at talk with the intent of ceasing the speaker’s ability to finish organically.”

Women were most commonly intrusively manterrupted on panel discussions, although men weren’t “aware” of doing it. Less than 1/5th of all women’s interruptions of anyone were intrusive.

2) It wasn’t solicited

Mansplaining is not a direct question followed by a direct explanatory answer. That’s just explaining.

Mansplaining is more of an unsolicited espousing of lengthy information and proffered opinions, which seeks to ensnare you in its immanent glow of intelligence, and which may or may not follow a question.

In the Chicago Tribune article, Elly Shariat, founder and CEO of shariatPR, tells of a former boss who pulled her aside to advise on the health implications of her shoe choices, for example.

3) Major assumptions are at play

The biggest thing about mansplaining is that it’s based on a culturally embedded assumption. At the core, men often assume they know more or better than women, and culture mirrors this.

Although she didn’t coin the word itself, mansplaining’s popular origin is attributed to Rebecca Solnit’s 2008 essay entitled “Men Explain Things to Me”, in which she tells about a cocktail party experience where a man asked her a question about her writing and then interrupted her to tell her at length about a very important book that she should read – which turned out to be her book, and he hadn’t even read it, just the review.

Solnit wrote, “Men explain things to me, and to other women, whether or not they know what they’re talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field, that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

What can we do about it?

No matter how narrowly or broadly you define it, mansplaining reinforces a power imbalance. It reinforces the male domination of meeting conversations and rewarding of men for talking more.

Here’s a thought: interrupting mansplaining might be a necessary, career-building skill.

In her experiment, Snyder found that women interrupt less and very rarely interrupt men (only 13% of the time). But which women were entirely responsible for that 13% of interrupting men? The only three senior women in the study – who all interrupted men (as well as women). In fact, these women were three of the four biggest interruptors in the study.

Snyder wrote, “The results suggest that women don’t advance in their careers beyond a certain point without learning to interrupt, at least in this male-dominated tech setting.”

The most empowering thing women can do when faced with mansplaining?

Put acquiescence away. Interrupt this nonsense, and be heard.

By Aimee Hansen

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The 8th Annual Top Women on The Buyside Event: Overcoming Risks, Managing Volatility and Another New Normal Ahead?

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women on the buyside event

By Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com

Theglasshammer convened 100 senior women from traditional and alternative investment management companies last Wednesday 1st June 2016 for the 8th Annual Top Women on the Buyside breakfast panel and networking event. Nicki Gilmour CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com opened the session with a welcome and an urge for the audience to continue to be change leaders for a culture of trust in their firms and beyond so that the industry can continue to attract women as investors and as participants.

The panel consisted of Judy Posnikoff, Managing Director of Paamco, Donna Parisi, Partner and Co-leader of the Asset Management Group, Shearman and Sterling, Nili Gilbert, Co-Founder of Matarin Capital Management, and Katina Stefanova, CEO and CIO of Marto Capital. Antony Currie, Associate Editor of Thomson Reuters Breaking Views moderated the discussion with candid questions that the panel answered with deep expertise to the peer audience as well as a sprinkling of humor at times.

Themes this year included disruption and innovation as drivers of results with the obvious challenges this year being the risk management of political, economic, credit and operational risk issues in this US election year.

It was agreed that volatility is high, uncertainty a constant and alpha diminished with a backdrop of limited historical data on how to invest in an environment of low interest rates. It was also agreed that all types of disruption, good and bad, was rife with developed countries still trying to ignite their economies post credit crisis. Risk would definitely dominate the short and medium term thoughts of investors. Fintech was also mentioned as an important element of future innovation in the industry without real precedents and an uncertain regulatory environment.

Katina Stefanova began with an overview of the macro environment and framed some issues,

“We deal with political, social and economic risks when assessing investments and this year is a unique year as we are at a pivotal point .We live in a world with over $200 trillion dollars of debt and with such uncertainty, it is not surprising that there is political volatility and that becomes a big issue for markets not just for investing but also for people building businesses. There has been a huge amount of disillusionment with traditional investment strategies, and other popular strategies such as risk parity in last few years. Volatility is here to stay and so it’s about figuring out how to navigate volatility and building that into your application.
It is time to develop alternative solutions.”

Judy Posnikoff concurred with the increased volatility issue stating

“The environment is quite different from 30 years ago when investors could achieve high enough returns with one asset class (fixed income). One of the difficulties of today’s uncertainty and meager expected rates of return is that institutions and individuals are having to take on more risk than they would like to in order to meet financing requirements such as pension liabilities.”

Nili Gilbert commented on unusual nature of the current macro environment stating,

“Negative interest rates and deflationary environments should be something that is taken seriously and it is hard to be informed by history on this. Due to a lack of comparable historical precedents, it is necessary to be thoughtful and insightful rather than just look to historical analysis or a purely data driven approach. “

Katina Stefanova agreed that the environment is unprecedented and the biggest risk is that we are at point when monetary policy is no longer effective. She added,

“Central banks have little power to stimulate or slow down economies. It is time for more aggressive fiscal policy and governments are going to have to play a bigger role. “

Donna Parisi picked up this point when asked about the role of regulators and the change of government in November with the moderator questioning could a new President undo the work done by regulators post credit crisis?

Donna commented on the legislative risk that could come from an election cycle,

“I think Dodd Frank is too far down the road, the rules are so deeply embedded regardless of who takes the White House in November and regulators are
not done trying to fix the lack of transparency that exists in the markets.”

Donna also mentioned that from her perspective that upcoming challenges for the industry would be liquidity mismatches and leverage issues.

“Since funds are more and more becoming intermediaries for lending post credit crisis, there are issues around leverage and the role they should play.” She suggested that regulators are worried that asset managers could be the next too big to fail crisis.

“The regulators are still struggling with information gathering despite the huge volume of data that is required to be reported. They don’t feel like they have enough transparent data to adequately assess liquidity and leverage risk and its impact on the broader market.”

Katina joined this point with her comments that regulatory consequences are not always well understood, and in many ways the government has not eliminated risk but rather transferred it to other institutions.

Nili mentioned that changes in the sell side and how it is regulated can ultimately affect stock price movements and have impact for portfolio managers. By way of example, she cited Reg FD (Regulation Fair Disclosure) as an event, which changed how sell-side analysts released communications, and as a result changed the efficacy of “earnings revisions” as a tool for stock price forecasting.

Other topics discussed included opportunities and creating value for the investor such as changing fee structures. Judy and Nili discussed how it was important for investors to have transparency around how much they had to pay in the search for alpha. Nili also shared her philosophy on finding opportunities stating four main concepts as buying fundamentally good businesses, valuation, shareholder friendly management teams and shorter-term catalysts such as price and volume analysis.

“When we were coming out of the financial crisis, it was a great time to be a value investor because in that environment of fear, there were many cheap stocks. Since then, we have seen investors regain their confidence and so it’s not as an attractive a time as before to be a value investor. Momentum investing is an opportunity that we saw do very well in 2015. What works changes all the time and it is crucial to understand behavioral biases in the markets for optimum results.”

Katina concurred, “ We have factors such as technology, a shift in socio-demographics and this economic environment and the current political volatility that creates a great opportunity for disruption. The question is where will that disruption come from? “

Citing Alibaba as an unexpected money management entity that has grown fast. She added, “It is about access, a platform to retail investors will change it all and it will come”.

Donna added that current incumbents in the market had a competitive advantage when it came to FinTech innovation given their regulated status. However, industry incumbents are at a disadvantage when it comes to being true innovators or disrupters. The rising importance of technology in the industry and the scalability of investment strategies as a result create significant risk for something to go wrong and a resulting regulatory response.

With so much to talk about, and with great questions from the audience, the discussion is hopefully continuing in offices across the world as we speak.

Thanks to our panelists and moderator and engaged audience for another great event!

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How networks can increase motivation, well-being and even increase performance

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Professional-networking-advice featuredLast week we talked about how having psychological safety at work is a key to feeling happy and performing well. We have also talked about employees networks recently and there is a case to say that the two are connected and if you can find support and connection here, then why not join one? They could be good for the soul and tangibly useful for tips to advance and a place to find mentors and sponsors. Maybe chatting with peers around a number of subjects will be valuable to you, ranging from social matters such as juggling parental/elder care commitments to a specific project that you want to talk more about. Either way, networks create space and time to talk in, learn in and connect with others in.

It is worth noting three things about networks though. Firstly, not everyone is created with the same amount of desire for contact and affiliation and it is wrong to assume that your need to feel part of something is equal to the next person. As an executive coach, I firmly believe that you should know yourself first ( psychometric tests will help us give your data back to you on this matter).
Secondly, it is also wrong to assume that all women are this or that. We are individuals with varying degrees of extraversion, confidence etc just as men are. What is systemic are the assumptions around what we are however and that is where you get to choose how to fill in the gaps when people think they know you. Remember you, according to you and you according to them are sometimes distant cousins.

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire a coach to help you navigate your career

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Is it good or bad for your career to change your name?

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wedding-322034_640Congrats! You just got married, now what? Back to work and you have a choice to carry on with your maiden name at work and in life or you can embark upon the admin that comes with changing your last name after getting married . It is an arduous one from standing in line at the DMV, calling the bank and credit card companies and changing email addresses but then there is all that personal branding work to think about. What are you going to do on social media and professional branding sites like LinkedIn?
 
There are more than just the formalities when someone who has already established a career changes their name. There is the story behind the name change and the conversation that is prompted when you first introduce yourself with your new name. An opportunity is created to talk about your personal life and recent marriage and this can serve to deepen your relationships with your co-workers and clients. Being authentic has been written about as a positive factor for building trust at work so perhaps it is a great way to get to know people better but also could reduce your visibility as people don’t recognize your name immediately.
 
Below three women share their experiences and advice on changing your name after already establishing a career.
Keeping it private
Cynthia Zeltwanger, Executive Director at the Paulson Institute, chose not to change her name when she got married in 1992.  
As a private person, she believes the topic can quickly spawn a personal conversation.
“I am a private person and I did not want to get into my personal life with professional relationships,” she said. “If you got married, it’s fine but if you are getting divorced, people could assume you got married and it creates a personal conversation with people in business that you might want to avoid.”
Zeltwanger got married when she was climbing the corporate ladder at a subsidiary of Société Générale. She remembers getting heat from her French colleagues for not taking her husband’s name but she was at pivotal point in her career and wanted to be taken seriously.
“Not so much anymore but when a woman gets married she can be seen as not as serious about her job,” said Zeltwanger. “While men are seen as more reliable when they have kids, women are seen as less committed.”
She believes that women need to be more cautious about clarifying their career intentions when making a name change.
“Be clear about your goals and aspirations and make sure the people in charge of your career progression know your goals have not changed just because you got married,” she said.“Some people will question your commitment.”
Hyphenating it
Patty Kevin followed family members into the derivatives business and worked 10 years in the industry before getting married. Afraid she would lose her identity but at the same time excited to embark on this new chapter in her life, she decided to hyphenate her name to Kevin-Schuler.
 
She said that the hyphenation was a way to make her colleagues aware of the name change.
 
“The colleagues you are close to know what’s going on in your life,” she said. “However, it’s the people on the peripheral that you need to educate.”
 
As Schuler’s career took her to the Chicago Board Options Exchange and then to her current role as Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at the Boston Options Exchange, she felt more comfortable with her new identity.
 
Schuler finally dropped her maiden name when she got divorced because she wanted to have the same last name as her kids.
 
With the advent of email and social media, Schuler believes it is easy to notify people of a name change. She recommends adding a hyphen in your name or a note in your email signature about the transition.
 
However, Schuler says there are times when it is okay to go back and forth between identities.
 
“I still get asked if I am related to this relative or that one,” she said. “If I am talking to someone who knows my family, I will introduce myself as Patty Kevin. I admit my transition has been a fluid one.”
Embracing it
While Zeltwanger wanted to keep her personal life private and Schuler has kept her identity flexible, others have embraced their new names without looking back.
 
Nancy Stern, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Allston Trading, remembers getting married and swiftly changing her last name. 
 
“I remember changing my name, address and phone number all at the same time,” she said. “This was before Facebook and Linked In.”
 
Starting out as a lawyer at Gardner, Carton & Douglas, Stern was worried she would lose her connections in the process and have to build up her network again.Similar to Schuler, Stern also felt like she was losing a part of her identity. However, looking back, she is glad that she made the change and believes women should embrace this right to choose.
 
“I didn’t really see this as a compromise of my feminism because I chose my husband and chose to take his name. The alternative would be my father’s name and while I had a wonderful father whom I loved very much, we cannot choose our fathers,” she said.
 
Changing your name is usually associated with a significant life event and If you are good at self-promotion and marketing yourself, a name change is an exciting reason to reinvent yourself. Have fun with your new personal branding campaign.
By Jessica Darmoni
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Resilience: Why “Storms” Are Critical to Leadership Development

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People-clapping-1024x681By Nneka Orji

Resilience is important. The late Elizabeth Edwards, American attorney and health care activist once said: “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before.” In today’s world of relentless innovation, changing business models, increasing expectations from the workforce, and market surprises, accepting our new and evolving realities through resilience building is now more important than ever.

In a 2014 report by Sarah Bond and Dr. Gillian Shapiro, 99.9% of the respondents said that resilience was “important” to their career success with 56% saying it was “essential”. A separate survey over 520 executives across 20 countries found that 71% of them rated resilience as “extremely important in determining who to retain”. Yet resilience is hard; there is no recipe or quick fix to building resilience. While numerous surveys have found that resilience is a common trait amongst some of the most effective leaders – not just in business but education, politics and other fields – there is no simple handbook to guide aspiring leaders around how to develop resilience. Bond and Shapiro found that only 10% of their research participants felt that their organisations placed enough emphasis on resilience being a differentiating factor in career success. For business leaders looking to identify and develop talent this is important; future leaders who are able to deal with surprises and setbacks, learn key lessons and readjust in a dynamic landscape are more likely to lead effectively and ensure business success.

Women: the (slight) resilience edge

Bond and Shapiro set out to understand if there were any differences between the way man and women view resilience. Surprisingly, they found little difference; 62% of men said they wanted to be more resilient compared to 71% of women. Across both groups, 53% saw themselves as resilient “all or almost all of the time” in their workplace. This subtle difference is supported by the findings of the aforementioned Accenture survey; the leaders identified women as slightly more resilient with 53% reporting women to “very to extremely resilient” compared to 51% identifying men in this category.

While the report didn’t identify significant differences in how resilience is viewed, the researchers found that women were seen to be doing more to support their female colleagues in developing their resilience through specific programmes that broaden and enhance the roles and projects they are assigned, and preparing them for more senior positions. This is encouraging news given the recalibration of gender representation required at most organisations.

The resilient leader

So if both men and women want to become more resilient and better leaders, and women are actively supporting other women to become more resilient, why is it so hard for organisations to develop more resilient leaders?

This year’s Roffey Park report found that organisations need to focus more on “talent preparedness” – investing in a combination of formal and experiential development to address the leadership capability deficit. Aspiring leaders too, many of whom are millennials now, are looking for opportunities to become the best leaders they can be yet organisations are falling short of their expectations around development opportunities. According to a recent Deloitte survey, 63% of millennials believe that their leadership skills “are not being fully developed”.

It’s time for organisations and today’s leaders to act on this insight. Crises come and go, and understanding that the skills required to whether the storms are not just essential to future survival of organisations but also critical to personal development. The life coach and author Tony Robbins describes great leaders as those who “inspire themselves and others to do, be, give and become more than they ever thought possible.” We can all point to leaders who aren’t just good but great; they continue to lead and inspire despite the challenges thrown at them and seem able to bounce back even when it seems impossible.

Building up the resilience bank

The good news is that resilience is “learnable”.Steven Snyder’s HBR article highlights why it is so important to get it right and how others have done so in the past by maintaining a positive outlook, accepting that learning through challenging situations is part of the journey, and acknowledging that it will be difficult.

While there’s no handbook with all the answers, there are a few steps aspiring leaders can take to start building up their resilience bank.

Engage with resilient leaders: Business leaders have good reason to focus on resilience when designing leadership development programmes but also by encouraging senior leaders to share their war stories – the experiences and day to day challenges which help them build up their resilience. Of course aspiring leaders also have a proactive role to play in identifying and engaging with those leaders that inspire them to understand how they too can expose themselves to key developmental opportunities.

Practice mindful resilience: Managing challenging situations and demonstrating resilience requires a strong sense of self awareness and mental control. As Harvard Business School professor Bill George reaffirmed through his interview with the Dalai Lama, practicing mindfulness is a key part of building resilience. Some military schools have developed training programmes which focus on resilience building through mental strength exercises.

Be open to learning (and vulnerability): The founders of Global Health Corps (GHC), a non-profit organisation, wrote in last year’s Stanford Social Innovation Review about the importance of creating “vulnerable community” in building resilience – a community in which programme participants felt able to open up to their peers which facilitated the learning process. As for results, “85% of GHC alumni report that their fellowship experience improved their resiliency skills”.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and keep going.

Career storms – the difficult project, the challenging market environment, the missed promotion – tend to come when we least expect them, so being able to see beyond the immediate challenge is key. It is how you choose to react to these situations that define your long term career success. Persistence and a continued commitment to learning means that we are better able to deal with these surprises.

In the words of one of the best known leaders – Martin Luther King Jr. – “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” It is our ability to bounce back from challenges and obstacles that will determine the extent of our success.The next generation of leaders deserve the chance to build their resilience and becoming more inspiring and effective leaders for future leaders.

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