Can You See A Promotional Path At Work? Leaving To Go Up The Ladder

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Woman-on-a-ladder-searchingBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

This summer we have talked about the scenarios that tend to create catalysts for talented people to seek out career coaches to help them navigate the promotional pathway which sometimes means leaving your current team or firm.

When I am coaching, I often hear that my client does not see a clear promotional path and this can be due to many elements but it always involves politics and people.

Sometimes the lack of vision to what the next internal move is is simply due to rigid corporate structures and a perceived lack of places to be promoted into. The old adages “Dead Men’s Shoes” or “Not enough pie to go around” are often mentioned here. Sometimes that is true, but sometimes you need to realize that space will be made for the “right” people. (* the phrase right people could be a whole article in itself, but that is for another day later this summer on unconscious bias, keep reading this column.)

In other instances, what companies sometimes do not grasp is that ambition does vary person to person but having systemic grind due to bad organizational development creates a pebble in everyone’ shoes that simply de-motivates even the most focused players over time. Can this be addressed? Yes. Is it usually addressed in firms? No. Sadly, due to the slightly invisible nature of company and team culture, the average manager cannot start to solve these issues.

Sometimes wanting to leave is about an individual manager or team member, but proper organizational development work can eliminate many of the bad behaviors that can be practiced by less than desirable coworkers. Bad behaviors appear when survivalism is the culture so some of these same folks might be quite nice colleagues in a different environment. Lewin’s theory suggests that behavior is a function of personality PLUS environment, or in other words, the perfect storm can occur in any firm for hellish behaviors to become commonplace.

Either way, it really is about leaving to get a promotion and work in a better culture.

Culture is “how we do things around here” and that is why we coach here at the glasshammer as we think we have the secret weapon for our coachees- we focus on you the individual but we understand the organizational structures and cultural markers so that we can help you pick the right firm and the right opportunity as your next promotion is everything! Call us for 8 sessions (over 18 months) for an introductory price of $2500 and watch your career take off.

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Finding a New Job While Doing Your Job Well

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Is it time to change jobs, change firms or leave the industry? (F)By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Last week we identified the lack of trust as a reason to leave your current job or firm and trust is everything at work just as it is at home. And a few weeks ago, we talked about how the biggest key for individual and team performance was in fact having psychological safety at work so in many respects this ties into that topic.

There might be reasons to stay and build that trust but I hesitate to give advice over the internet in this column as each case will be different and very personalized to the players and the situation.

Instead, I am going to say it straight; if trust is lacking and cannot be built then leave. Of course, the trick is to do your job well while you are securing your next ( better) role in a different team or company.

Do not “stay and quit”.

Remember, every project you do, or skill you acquire can be talked about on your resume and in your job interviews. Use the time wisely and find a firm where trust is abundant. How do you know that? Ask questions like” What gets rewarded here?”. “What gets tolerated?” and “How does the task (insert your type of tasks that you do) get done around here?”.

Best of Luck!

If you are looking for an executive coach to help you navigate your career then please contact nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation conversation

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Reverse and Peer Mentoring – How Can It Help Your Career

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mentorsBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

If you are managing a team, chances are that the team is already diverse. It may be made up of mixed age groups as well as perhaps having other social identity differences such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, LGBT status etc.

So, have you thought about breaking out of the traditional structure of looking for or being a senior person mentoring a junior person? Instead have you thought about getting a peer mentor or even a reverse mentor? A reverse mentor can be a junior level person mentoring a senior person or can be someone who is reverse to you (gay/straight for example).

The point of the interaction (at least in my opinion) is to learn things that you normally do not have access to. Experiences differ, so create a space where you can hear about them. It will make you a better leader, manager and probably person but only if you can listen without prejudice or judgement. Open your mind, heart and ears!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com to discuss further

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3 Tips On How To Manage Your Career During the Dog Days of Summer

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woman in a field at summer featuredBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Things are finally slowing down as we head into the summer holiday season and yet this is a great time to spend time on managing your career. Here are 3 ways to enhance your skills from the office or even the beach.

Tip #1 Summer reading- pick 1-3 books that you want to read this summer that are career focused or can help you in some way. Text books can be dry, so if books are too much, pick articles (we have 5000 on glasshammer2.wpengine.com) that are research backed and you can read the research for deeper knowledge.

Tip #2 Have Lunch and coffee with your network- refresh your relationships and hear what others are up to professionally with iced coffees and a bite of lunch. Also, use this slower time at the office to secure a lunch with important sponsors and new people for your network.

Tip #3 Recharge a little yourself, so that you are ready for the fast-paced flow of work and meetings once the dog days of summer are over!

Happy Summer! And Happy Independence Day in the US!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career please contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com to discuss further.

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How to be a good Sponsor and Champion to LGBT people in their careers

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LGBT flag featuredBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Following on from last week’s career advice and staying with the LGBTA theme for the month since June is Pride month, today I am going to talk about how to be an Ally, Champion and Sponsor to your LGBT colleagues and co-workers. I come across many people who want to be an inclusive leader and ensure that their team members get to focus on work and not on fitting it or assimilating instead. However, many leaders and managers with the best of intentions still do not have many LGBT mentees or sponsees. Tips to ensure your portfolio of people that you mentor is diverse can include:

Do not be afraid of offering up supportive statements to indicate you are an Ally. Gay team members often do not know where you stand on the topic as a concept because sadly the topic is still at ‘concept’ level ( there are still millions of overtly homophobic people out there some more covert than others, how do we know that you are an ally if you don’t tell us!)
Don’t presume you know them just because you know one other gay person (or even several) because like racial bias, you are stereotyping whether you realize it or not.
Respect their individual personality on how much they want to talk about their spouse and family just as you would any other coworker, not everyone wants to share regardless of their identity. Equally, ask them the questions you ask your other team members ( like: hey how was your weekend, how are the kids etc?)
Coach other less exposed/less evolved executives on your team and know you are a culture carrier.

Know that you have the ability to advance people individually but also change the system so that future generations can truly come to work and not have to come out everyday and fear mixed reactions.

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

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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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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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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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How do you become an inclusive manager? Create Psychological Safety for your Team

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diverse workforce featuredSeveral years ago diversity became diversity and inclusion. What does this mean? Well I am not going to lie, for most firms even if they have it in the title of a department, it means nothing just another buzzword.. If it is done properly however, inclusion is the most powerful tool a leader or manager can have in their toolkit because it can provide something that is the basis for individual and team performance. How do you become an inclusive leader , manager or person? Psychological safety at work- yes that’s right and studies have been exploring this for years, as has Google more recently with something they call Project Aristotle. They discovered that just by having a genius or two on the team, you are not going to get the best results. However if you have a team environment where people can feel, as well as think and be themselves (expressing themselves is really key here and being heard) then no matter who is on the team, the result is productivity. There are many factors to high performing teams for sure but Google’s data indicated that psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work. This certainly makes sense if you think about it. Women (and anyone who does not fit the mold of the traditional work persona /expert) can find space to connect with others talking work and/or any other topic of shared interest.

So, let people talk, let them tell you about their lives and let them flow. For some of us (I know I am guilty of this) like to stay on task and to draw boundaries around topics when digression and tangents feel out of control, but maybe, just maybe try out this way of being in your next meeting.

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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4 Reasons to get involved in your women’s network (or other Employee Resource Group at work)

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Professional-networking-advice featuredLast week, I rather scathingly pointed out that taking on the responsibility to hire and promote women via your women’s network was to put it diplomatically, a long haul strategy.

This week I am going to outline what you should do in your network (and why you should join it)

  1. Advocacy is a powerful tool- advocating for an issue to be paid attention to is often where change starts. Advocating for others is powerful also (sponsorship) and finally advocating for yourself is crucial, raise you hand and put yourself out there for the next promotion or job.
  2. Personal visibility and access to people you would not otherwise have access to (this is a way to start a conversation with senior people)
  3. Networking with each other – peer, higher and reverse mentoring and connections are always a good thing to propel you forward in everyday work – knowing who to ask to get stuff done is what it is all about.
  4. Learning in a specific container creates mental and physical space, hence we hold panels at theglasshammer.com where people can mark time in their calendar to learn new insights.

More on this all summer long.

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