Pride Month Primer: Being an Effective Ally and Champion for Gender Diversity

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iStock_000016657279XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I’ve been involved with LGBT groups since 2002, and I first noticed the term ‘straight allies’ around 2004,” recalled John Henry Watson, Vice President at Citi. “I saw an ‘A’ at the end of LGBT and wondered what it meant, and when I found out, it seemed like a no-brainer.”

Now co-head of Citi’s LGBT network chapter in New York, Watson said one of the areas he focuses on is sustaining Citi’s ally program and keeping allies involved in the long term. “Straight allies are definitely a crucial component of a diversity strategy and they help to demonstrate and sustain a supportive, inclusive culture.”

In its report on straight allies [PDF], the UK group Stonewall explains how support from straight employees is critical in achieving inclusiveness in the workplace.

“Good straight allies recognise that gay people can perform better if they can be themselves and straight allies use their role within an organisation to create a culture where this can happen. Straight allies might be at the very top of an organisation or a colleague in a team. Either way, they recognise that it’s not just the responsibility of gay people to create a workplace culture that is inclusive of everyone.”

Watson believes, “If a straight ally goes through the effort to understand the issues that LGBT coworkers face, it’s not only energizing, but it can have a positive business impact.”

What can straight allies do to provide this critical support? Here are three ways straight allies can make a difference in workplace inclusiveness.

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Building Business Relationships: Women, Power, and Golf

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iStock_000013865591XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Earlier this month the Masters reminded us of the not-so-subtle bias that women continue to face in the corporate space. Even when they have reached the highest echelons of business, women still contend with outright barriers to networks of power.

And make no mistake, golf and business go hand in hand. Golf has long been the game of business people. It has social cache, while at the same time, it’s not too physically demanding. It’s good for building the rapport, conversation, and friendly competition at the core of strong business relationships.

But, the majority of women avoid the game, and, according to Leslie Andrews and Adrienne Wax, the authors of the newly published book Even Par: How Golf Helps Women Gain the Upper Hand in Business, they’re missing out on the opportunity to build strong relationships that can help advance their careers. “Golf is a great way to build relationships with clients, prospective clients, people within your company. If you can talk about golf, all of the sudden, you have a reason to talk to the CEO or your boss two levels above you,” Wax explained.

She added, “It’s not only our point of view, but statistics support the fact that golf has significant advantages to businesswomen.” She pointed to a survey by Mass Mutual of 1,000 woman who played golf. “Seventy-three percent agreed that playing golf helped them build relationships and network for business,” she said.

Golf can be a tool for advancement, but given its historical and sometimes current practice of outright discrimination, should women bother? Does learning to play golf to help your career mean assimilating to a boys’ club culture of business, or is it about taking control, using every tool at your disposal to get ahead? It’s a tricky topic.

One thing’s for sure – considering the rising clout of women in the corporate space, maybe golf needs women more than women need golf. “I can’t think of a man in business who wouldn’t want to network with Virginia Rometty,” Wax remarked.

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Standing Out Online: The New Realities of Job Search for Executive Women

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iStock_000014187113XSmallBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Technology, social media, and the recession have drastically changed the face of job seeking—it’s much harder today to stand out from the noise. Talent hunters now have access to literally hundreds of millions of online resumes in an instant through job boards, search engines, and networking sites. Yet the online environment can serve as an “equalizer” as well, helping to create a more level playing field for executive women during the job search process—provided they know the right strategies to use.

How can you cut through the clamor and gain the attention of potential employers, recruiters, and hiring managers in today’s ultra-competitive online and social media environment? Who better to ask than Mike Junge, who currently serves on the leadership recruiting team at Google and has helped hundreds of job seekers land offers with Fortune 500 companies around the globe.

Junge is also author of the recently released book, Purple Squirrel: Stand Out, Land Interviews, and Master the Modern Job Market and a former five-time Recruiter of the Year with a national staffing firm. As such, he has the inside word on what it really takes for female execs to get hired in an environment where it’s no longer about searching for jobs—it’s about being searched for.

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Backlash: Are Women Really Getting Even?

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iStock_000016828754XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“How many of you are feeling this tsunami feeling… that things are changing?” asked applied futurist Faith Popcorn during her keynote talk at Catalyst’s 50th Anniversary conference last week. Popcorn gave examples like Time Magazine’s recent cover story “The Richer Sex,” which suggests that 40% of working wives now out-earn their husbands, and last summer’s much-talked about article in The Atlantic, “The End of Men.”

Articles like these point out that the majority of college graduates around the world are women or that girls tend to perform better in school than boys. They claim that it’s only a matter of time before women become the dominant gender at home and in the workplace. They imply that we are on the verge of a zero sum ascendency of women. Really?

This kind of dialogue shifts our focus away from the here and now, the present, when women still earn less money than men for doing the same job in every industry, when women are still only 3.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs, when women are still pushed out of the workforce and can’t get back in after having children, when women’s career dreams are still hampered by a societal belief that they are and should be less capable leaders than men.

The “end of men” rhetoric is aggressive and provocative. Rather than creating value, it sets us up for a fight with those who do not yet understand how inclusiveness can help companies and governments perform better, and will not agree with the urgent need address the issue. Or they simply don’t believe there is still an issue to address.

The “tsunami feeling” of change that Popcorn talked about is a great way to rally women, but without also acknowledging the headwinds we have to contend with, women will not be able to make much headway today – or, for that matter, tomorrow.

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Navigating Your Career: Proven Strategies for Ambitious Women

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Women-working-on-tablet“I continue to be humbled by being in the company of women,” said Cynthia Fryer Steer, Executive Vice President and Head of Manager Research and Investment Solutions, BNY Mellon. “We can learn so much from each other.”

Steer was speaking at The Glass Hammer’s latest career management event “Navigating, Negotiating, and Building Your Strategic Network” last week. Our panelists shared their advice and wisdom (based on their combined “150 years of experience” said moderator Kathleen McQuiggan, President of Catalina Leadership) on how to get to the next level in the investment management industry.

In addition to Steer, our panelists included Nicole Arnaboldi, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Alternative Investments, Credit Suisse; Nanette Buziak, Managing Director, Head of Equity Trading, ING Investment Management; Ingrid Dyott, Managing Director and Associate Portfolio Manager, Neuberger Berman; and Paula L. Rogers, President, Institutional Capital.

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Courage and Authenticity: How Women Exercise Power

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Team portrait of happy businesswomen in officeBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“There will be people who… will wish you had just kept your mouth shut,” said Anita Hill, discussing the challenges women face when speaking in the face of adversity. “But you have to deal with reasserting yourself, and being your authentic self.”

Hill was speaking at the National Council for Research on Women’s annual awards dinner last night, and she commented passionately on the importance of having courage. Hill said, had she known the outcome of her 1991 televised testimony on sexual harassment claims against US Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, and the character and credibility smear she endured afterward, she still would have gone through with it.

Honorees for the night included Soledad O’Brien, CNN Anchor and Special Correspondent; Beth Brooke, Global Vice Chair, Public Policy, Ernst & Young; Anita Hill, Senior Advisor to the Provost, Professor of Law, Public Policy and Women’s Studies, Brandeis University; and the creators of the PBS Series Women, War & Peace, Abigail Disney, Pamela Hogan, and Gini Reticker.

Speaking on the panel, Hill was joined by O’Brien, Brooke, and Disney, discussing the nature of courage, authenticity, and power.

“When it comes to women and leadership, many of them get into leadership because of something that happens to them and they have to do it,” Hill said. “They care about a problem and they want it addressed and know they have something to add.”

“Find an issue you are passionate about and become the leader to address it.”

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Being Yourself at Work: Avoiding Stereotypes and Building a Solid Strategic Network

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Publisher of The Glass Hammer

Members of The Glass Hammer community will know that we hold extremely targeted and specific networking events with panel discussions (and articles) that tackle the toughest topics around career management for women in financial and professional services. This year will be no different as we thunder into 2012 with eight events lined up. We aim to encourage you to be well-equipped to succeed in the world of work and we hope to inform, inspire, and empower you every step of the journey.

We are hosting our first 2012 event on the 6th of February, which is part of our “Managing Identities at Work” series. This pioneering event addresses what it means to be an LGBT woman at work in the financial markets and professional services, and will be held here in NY in February and then in London in June. We will be also exploring what it means to be a multicultural women in the industry in New York in October. This work is an extension of our efforts over the past five years, including discussions and whitepapers around Women in Technology, Senior Women in Investment Management, and other issues like how women negotiate differently than men.

You might ask what are we talking about when we ask our readers to think about managing their “identity.” Most of us don’t get out of bed in the morning and think about ourselves in that way. Personal or social identity, and how we manage it, is not to be confused with personal branding. We have control over how we market ourselves. Managing our identities is different – but critical for success.

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Ending the Beauty Bias

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In the mirrorBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

In the past, studies have revealed that those with more symmetrical faces are perceived to be more attractive and those considered beautiful or handsome are seen as intelligent and good. Those of course, are just general perceptions, but what happens when your physical appearance actually influences how competent others believe you to be at your job?

A recent controversial study paid for by Procter & Gamble (a manufacturer of popular makeup brands, a fact that should not be overlooked) revealed that wearing makeup increases people’s perceptions of a woman’s likability, her competence, and her trustworthiness.

The study featured 25 female subjects, aged 20 to 50, who were white, African-American, and Hispanic. Each was photographed barefaced and in three looks that researchers called natural, professional, and glamorous. One hundred forty-nine adults (including 61 men) judged the pictures for enough time to make a snap judgment. An additional 119 adults (including 30 men) were given unlimited time to look at the same faces. The participants judged women made up in varying “intensities of luminance contrast,” which means how much their eyes and lips stood out compared to their skin. The results revealed that participants viewed those wearing makeup as more competent than barefaced women, whether they had a quick glance or a longer inspection.

It seems our youth and beauty obsessed culture has reached an all-time low if judgments about attractiveness are spilling over into judgments about competence. But according to Marjorie Jolles, assistant professor of Roosevelt University’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program, this has always been the case.

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Passion and Leadership: Looking Ahead to 2012

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iStock_000001586116XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

This year on The Glass Hammer, a topic we’ve discussed frequently is passion – why uncovering your true passion about your work can help advance your career and can make you happier. The value of passion really comes down to being “authentic” – when you’re doing what you truly love, it shows, and helps influence others to follow you or pull you forward.

In his new book Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level, Joel A. Garfinkle explains why passion is so important for leaders – it’s a lot easier to get other people to follow you when they believe in you, than when they don’t. He writes:

“Be passionate and excited by your objectives, and share this excitement with others. This kind of enthusiasm propels people toward your point of view and prompts them to connect emotionally with your passion.

“Besides passion, you also need to display confidence. Even if others doubt your ideas, they embrace them because they trust your confidence.

Enthusiasm and confidence are two qualities that stem from passion, but there’s a lot more to it than that. According to a recent study, the wrong kind of passion can stand in your way, while the right kind can propel you forward. How can you manage your own passion and use it to gain more ground in 2012?

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Gender Intelligence: Why Different Wiring Means Better Business

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iStock_000014690519XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Why, after decades of work to advance and empower women, have we yet to close the gender leadership gap? According to Marie Wilson, founder of The White House Project, one reason could be the brain. “I was convinced so much that if we just didn’t the right things, trained women right – and I’m so tired of ‘fixing women’ – we could just make it work. When I met with Barbara Annis, we started to talk about what I had avoided my whole life – brain differences.”

She added, “Wiring doesn’t mean everything, but it means a lot.”

Wilson was speaking at the first ever Gender Intelligence Summit, a conference organized to discuss the neurobiology of gender. Held in Washington, DC, on Friday, the conference featured preeminent scientists on the subject of gender intelligence, as well as corporate diversity practitioners who have incorporated gender intelligence into diversity and inclusion work – and found success.

When companies take into account gender differences within the brain, and teach individuals and companies to appreciate and value those differences, diversity becomes more than a numbers game. Barbara Annis, Founder and CEO of Barbara Annis & Associates and Chair of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is an expert on inclusive leadership. She said, “We thought that if we got enough women into the pipeline, some of them would float up.”

But, she continued, true inclusiveness isn’t merely about the numbers. It’s time to consider the neurological reasons women work and lead differently than men, and why companies can benefit from appreciating those differences.

For example, men generally perform better than women when it comes to spatial reasoning, while women usually perform better at reading facial expressions. Both are valuable skills for a business team to have in its toolbox. Learning to appreciate these kinds of distinctions can help instill corporate culture with a reverence for difference – which will drive gender inclusiveness on a more meaningful level than simply injecting more women into the pipeline with fingers crossed for success.

Focusing on the benefits of “unlikeness,” Annis said, is one way to encourage companies to change their game, refine processes to retain women, and, ultimately, make more money. “The business case is compelling. You can’t deny it anymore,” she explained.

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