Resolution: Three Ways to Help Other Women While Helping Yourself

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Happy New Year! It’s January 2013, and time to think about the year ahead. What better way to start than with a little history lesson?

Celebrating the New Year on January 1st goes back as far as the ancient Romans. In fact, the Romans had a god dedicated to new beginnings: Janus, which is where we get the name January, today. On the first day of the year, people made offerings to Janus, and, then as now, they spent the day wishing one another health and prosperity for the year ahead.

We can also see the essence of another contemporary New Year’s Day tradition in Janus. In artwork and literature, he is depicted as having two heads, one looking forward and one looking back. Similarly, when we set New Year’s resolutions, we do so looking both forward and to the past.

For decades, professional women have had to deal with the false stereotype that women try to thwart other women’s success or seek to hold one another back at work. We believe its time to move past that tired myth. It’s time to acknowledge that, while some people may work against their colleagues, it’s not a trait specific to or more prevalent in women. In fact – as Catalyst research showed last year – women do help one another. A lot.

Looking back at this old stereotype, and the research showing that it’s just not true, we believe it’s time to move forward. Out with the old biased myths and in with real progress on the image of women in the workplace! We hope you’ll join us in making a Women Helping Women resolution this year.

We want to make it so clear that women are helping each other advance that the queen bee stereotype gets laid to rest for good, and we can move past the negative vision of women perpetuated by the myth. Let’s all make some noise about the ways in which women help other women succeed.

Here are three ways you can help women – and help yourself in the process.

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Make Your Voice Heard: How Can Companies Help Women in Tech Achieve Their Career Goals?

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

We are pleased to announce the next phase of our research on women in technology. Help us develop innovative solutions that help women advance while also enabling companies to get the most out of all their employees. Click here to begin our confidential and anonymous 10-minute survey.

At our recent women in technology event last month, our panelists discussed the important ways they managed to climb to the top. Our speakers, all senior women in Managing Director or C-level technology roles, shared their strategies for advancement – like finding male allies, developing an appetite for risk, and showcasing problem solving skills.

Their stories were interesting and inspirational. But afterward, during our networking segment, discussions between panelists and event guests turned up even more questions. Most notably, women wanted to know: “how?”

  • “How do I make sure division leaders remember my name when we’ve gone through three re-orgs in the past three years?”
  • “How can I fulfill my dream of becoming an entrepreneur if I don’t know anything about sales?”
  • “How do you develop rapport with colleagues when all they talk about is sports?”

Certainly, these questions all have very different answers. But a deeper analysis shows that they are really all about the same thing – navigating obstacles.

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Empowering the World’s Women Would Fuel Economic Growth

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iStock_000021795969XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, the World Economic Forum released its Global Gender Gap report for 2012. As usual, Nordic countries dominated the top of the index, which ranks countries on how close they are to minimizing the gap between male and female equality.

In the report, the WEF also highlights a large group of countries, like Japan, Quatar, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, that have made investments in women’s health and education, but have not removed barriers to women’s participation in the workforce. The study authors, Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University; Laura D. Tyson, University of California, Berkeley; and Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum, believe that by removing the barriers to women’s workforce participation in these countries, the global economy would grow significantly.

“The index continues to track the strong correlation between a country’s gender gap and its national competitiveness, income and development. A country’s competitiveness depends on its human talent – the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. Because women account for one-half of a country’s potential talent base, a nation’s competitiveness in the long term depends significantly on how it educates and utilizes its women.”

Focusing on women’s health and education are only two steps toward equality. Empowering the world’s women at work would fuel economic growth in their own countries and around the globe.

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Top Women on the Buy-Side: Finding Yield in a Volatile Market

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Women-on-TabletLast week, The Glass Hammer hosted its fifth annual Top Women on the Buy-Side breakfast for female leaders in the investment management industry. Our panelists discussed the risks and opportunities for the year ahead, as well as how and where they are finding yield in a volatile market.

Moderated by Wall Street journalist Heidi Moore, the panel included Gabriela Franco Parcella, Chief Executive Officer, Mellon Capital Management Corporation; Denise Higgins, CFA, Client Portfolio Manager, ING Investment Management; Anne Milne, Managing Director, Emerging Markets Corporate Research, Bank of America Merrill Lynch; and Judith Posnikoff, PhD, Co-Founder & Managing Director, PAAMCO.

The lively conversation ranged from dealing with the challenges of uncertainty, managing risk, and the bright spots ahead. Milne quipped, “What are we looking for? Returns. Moreover, we’re looking for risk adjusted returns. We’re looking for good ideas to generate risk adjusted returns. And we’re making calls to find analysts to generate ideas to generate risk adjusted returns.”

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Why We Need to Keep Celebrating Powerful Women

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Earlier this week, American Banker published its lists of the Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance, and Women to Watch. For a decade now, the magazine has celebrated the achievements of top women in the industry.

But as Heidi Miller, retired president of JP Morgan’s international business, suggests in her blistering article accompanying American Banker’s list, gender parity hasn’t come nearly as far in that decade as she’d hoped. She writes, “The value of an initiative like this one is that it creates visibility around an issue that still, after all these years, needs every bit of attention it can get.”

Miller points out that even though there are some women in senior management at financial services companies, there aren’t many of them. So many believe the industry to be a paragon of meritocracy – yet, she continues, simply taking a look at who’s in the c-suite should be enough to show anyone that it’s not.

Heather Landy, Editor in Chief of American Banker, agreed. “You would think – even hope – that ten years on, we would no longer need it. Women absolutely remain the exception to the rule when it comes to senior leadership in many industries, including financial services. Because of that, we absolutely do need to continue to publish rankings.”

Drawing attention to the few senior women who have made it to the top reminds us of the systemic challenges in getting there. It pushes us all to work to topple these barriers, and encourages senior women reach out a hand to younger generations climbing the ladder as well. Finally, it expands the vision of what a leader can look like for both women and men.

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Flex Execs: How to Get Your Teammates on Board with Your Telecommuting

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iStock_000004026171XSmallBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

If you use flex time at work or telecommute, you may find, like Rodney Dangerfield, that you “don’t get no respect.” A report by The Center for Work & Family notes that a primary challenge for organizations that use telecommuting is the “perceived difficulty in monitoring employee performance and measuring employee productivity.” In other words, many office-bound managers and colleagues think flex workers aren’t pulling their weight.

Yet ample research has proven otherwise. A July 2012 study by Stanford University [PDF] researchers found that employees with flexible work arrangements are actually more productive than their office-bound counterparts, despite skepticism over its effectiveness suggested by phrases like “shirking from home.” In the study, telecommuters took 15 percent more calls, worked 11 percent more hours, and had 4 percent higher overall productivity than office colleagues.

In her book Innovations in Office Design: The Critical Influence Approach to Effective Work Environments, author Diane Stegmeier reported on a wide range of studies that echo Stanford’s findings:

  • American Express found telecommuting can increase employee productivity by as much as 45 percent.
  • AT&T found teleworkers spend an additional hour working per day on average.
  • Future Foundation found teleworkers saved their employers up to 10 hours weekly in the United Kingdom.
  • The Telework Coalition found telecommuting can increase employee productivity more than 20 percent.

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Women in the Boardroom: Moving Critical Mass Forward

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Business People Applauding In a MeetingBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

The first time I heard the phrase “critical mass,” it had nothing to do with boardroom gender equality. I was a student at the College of William and Mary, and Critical Mass was an event where cyclists would attempt to clog the streets of my tiny college town to kindly encourage automobile drivers to share the road. While I generally supported my two-wheeled classmates, I wasn’t altogether clear on their event’s apparent link to nuclear physics. I later learned they were inspired by much larger demonstrations in San Francisco, which, in turn, were inspired by a 1992 documentary on bicycle transportation around the world.

In an interview in the film, American bicycle designer George Bliss describes his observations of traffic in China, where cyclists had an unspoken method of crossing busy intersections, which often had no traffic signals. More and more cyclists would collect along one side of the intersection, until their group reached a certain understood size (“critical mass”) when it was safe to cross the road together, as automobile traffic would have to stop and wait for the cyclists to pass.

We can draw inspiration from the critical mass metaphor for gender diversity as well. As the number of women in boardrooms and on executive committees increases, there reaches a point where women feel safe to speak up, get enthusiastic, take risks, and make waves – without being seen as a threat to the status quo, as overemotional, as a risky hire, or as a token place holder. Critical mass is the notion of safety in numbers.

And “safety in numbers” means better business. Recent research by Catalyst suggests that companies with three or more women directors outperform those with all-male boards. “When you reach a certain critical mass, the board starts to behave differently,” said Joe Keefe, President and CEO of PAX World Mutual Funds and a founder of the Thirty Percent Coalition. “Conversations are richer, decisions improve, women bring different perspectives to the table, and performance improves.”

Indeed, a new Credit Suisse study of almost 2,400 companies suggests that boardroom diversity improves corporate performance. In fact, companies with more than one woman on their board performed 26% better over the past 6 years than those with no female directors.

Imagine the impact on gender diversity if the conversation around critical mass were one that appealed to both women and companies? The Thirty Percent Coalition intends to do just that.

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Success and the System: Brave Female CEOs Wanted for Systemic Change Gig

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer and Evolved Employer

Apparently, Marissa Mayer, the new pregnant female CEO of Yahoo, dislikes feminism and taking maternity leave. Should we feel betrayed by her attitudes? Or should we rejoice that a woman gets a coveted spot as a CEO of a Fortune 500 company?

I believe that everyone, including Marissa Mayer, is entitled to her opinion around feminism (however much I personally disagree with her) and around her own boundaries for returning from maternity leave as much as the next person. Nitpicking about her choices would be a distraction from the real issue: why systemic bias in most workplace cultures results in protectionist behaviors from female executives that make them look more like their fathers than their daughters.

However, what Marissa Mayer may not fully realize is that with great power of being a CEO comes great responsibility.

All leaders need to be conscious that their actions and words heavily influence company culture. Behaviors shape the system and the system dictates workplace culture, often invisible to the naked eye, but can be simply defined as “how we do things around here.” The workplace culture in which you operate dictates whether you are running with a weight around your ankle on a potholed road or running on the latest Olympic track with the wind at your back.

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Creating a Future: 2012 Multicultural Women’s National Conference

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iStock_000006308877XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

This week Working Mother Media celebrated the 10th year of its Multicultural Women’s National Conference. The event, led by Carol Evans, President of Working Mother Media, celebrated a decade of progress in advancing multicultural women in the corporate workplace.

Evans presented data showing how the percentage of multicultural women in corporations, while still slim, has grown significantly over the past ten years. The first time the organization surveyed its member companies (“Best Companies”) on the subject of multicultural women, Evans continued, “Nobody knew whether it was okay to release these numbers or if they should stay hidden.”

Looking at the total workforce of Best Companies, 21% are multicultural women. “But as you go up the ladder…” Evans continued, the percentage decreases significantly. Today 12% of officers or managers at Best Companies are women of color, compared to only 7% nationwide. Only four percent of board members at Best Companies are multicultural women.

Evans noted that 4.3% of direct reports to the CEO are multicultural women, while 72.7% are Caucasian men. Multicultural women only make up 2.8% of P&L roles at Best Companies, compared with Caucasian women at 19.5% and men at 77.7%.

But, she continued, despite these small numbers, multicultural women represented 14% of top earners at Best Companies, compared to 11% last year. Finally, she added, companies are working to increase diversity. Over four out of five respondents (84%) said they rate managers on how they handle diversity issues. And 36% have compensation practices that reward managers for helping multicultural women advance.

She called for more trust and cooperation between white women and multicultural women in order to share the growing space for women at the top. “Our future together is for us to create together,” she said.

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Nature or Nurture: Diversity in the Financial Services

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Business ProfessionalsBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In a New York Times opinion piece this weekend, Cambridge research fellow John Coates describes with compelling detail the way hormones influence the behavior of (male) traders. He writes, “[Testosterone] produced by men (and, in lesser quantities, by women) primes the trader for the challenge ahead, just as it does athletes preparing to compete and male animals to fight. Rising levels increase confidence and, crucially, appetite for risk.”

Considering the awe with which Coates narrates the effects of the chemical trio testosterone, adrenaline, and cortisol, you’d think he was channeling Sir David Attenborough. “Finally… the trader leans into his screen, pupils dilated, breathing rhythmic, muscles coiled, body and brain fused for impending action.”

Coates suggests that this biological interplay is so pronounced in younger men that it can drive markets to soar or crash.

His solution? More women. “Women and older men have a fraction of the testosterone of young men, so if more of them managed money, we could perhaps stabilize the markets,” he writes.

In Coates’ bleak description of the (male) trading mechanism, he envisions women as the brakes for a contraption spinning out of control. Calls for diversity are, of course, appreciated. But using women as a tool to gum up the works, rather than overhauling a system that overrewards risky behavior, seems more like a quick fix than a long-term solution. More seriously, it reduces individual humans to purposefully ill-fitting cogs in a corporate machine.

Would you want to work for a company that only hired you because it believes your biological construction is inherently ill-suited for the way its top performers make money?

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