Office Gossip: How It Can Actually Help You in Your Career

iStock_000009318986XSmallBy Mary Chung

How many times have we been told that there is no place for gossip in the office?

Let’s be honest, we are all guilty of it, and now we may not have to feel so bad for engaging in it.

According to a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley, there can be positive effects to gossiping in groups because people learn through gossip about the behavior of others. The study showed that individuals readily gossiped reputational information about others, and groups used that gossip to selectively interact with cooperative people and encouraged cooperation as a team, while ostracizing those who were behaving selfishly and egotistically.

So, though it is still very much a frowned upon office activity, gossiping can have its benefits. It is also a part of the daily social interaction and office bonding that we have with our co-workers. What might be surprising, however, is that while women are typically stereotyped as being the bigger gossip than their male counterparts, in reality, research shows the opposite is true. Numerous studies show that men gossip more than women. Not only do men gossip more, but their choice of venue to gossip is usually at the office with other colleagues.

Are there ways for women –who already have the challenge of being stereotyped as gossiping more – to use this negative stereotype to benefit their career, especially since research shows that gossiping can have positive effects?

Kimberly Unger, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Securities Traders Association of New York (STANY), said she has encountered many people who have benefited from gossip during her career. “Information can help. Even if it is untrue, you can learn a lot about the people who are spreading or starting the gossip and that in itself is information. Gossiping can also strengthen bonds between co-workers and that can lead to greater productivity, team work, and empathy,” Ms. Unger said.

Adrienne Becker, CEO of Glass Elevator Media, a production incubator that sources, secures and develops a co-owned intellectual property library that creates high-quality entertainment across multiple platforms, said: “office gossip is a universal reality” that can impact a person’s career. She describes an example of how she personally benefited earlier in her career.

“It would be hard to imagine that office gossip hasn’t played in a role in most careers. Years ago, during my first day on the job at a large media corporation, there was a rumor that my boss, the VP, would be fired for a mishap that pre-dated me. I wasn’t sure why my new colleagues were telling me this and wasn’t sure it was a great thing to be so visible on day one. But when the gossip played itself out in reality, I was prepared to step into the VP role because I had time to think it through,” Ms. Becker said. “When you have a mechanism to manage change and anticipate surprises, it will serve you well. In this sense, gossip is an essential career tool.”

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The Introverted Boss: How to Make Your Personality Work to Your Advantage

iStock_000016639682XSmallBy Nikole Grimes

Can introverts successfully lead in business?

After the publication in 2012 of Sara Cain’s New York Times bestselling book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, there has been a rallying cry for introverts everywhere. Cain’s TED talk in February 2012 is lauded by introverts who feel validated and uplifted by her message.

In her TED talk, Cain expounds on the value of introverts to creativity and innovation, but do these qualities translate to effective leadership?

Examples of Successful Introverts
In a 2013 article in Forbes, Victor Lipman, a management communications coach and retired insurance company executive, reflected on his career and the hundreds of executives he worked with. He writes, “…there are just a handful who come to mind as universally admired and respected. Oddly enough, they were all quiet individuals who could all easily be considered introverts – and all shared the same constellation of characteristics.”

Lipman notes that these introverted leaders were universally measured in their responses, highly analytical, good listeners, naturally risk averse, and the frequently the voice of reason. He continued, “Their voice was not the loudest but was often the most listened to.”

Bestselling author, chairman of Avon Products, and former CEO and President of Campbell Soup Company, Doug Conant, writes in a 2011 article that he scores high on the introversion scale. He says, “In meetings, introverts can often be perceived as aloof, disinterested, shy or retiring. … When viewed from the outside, it may seem that I’m not openly contributing as much as I could or should, but that’s just because I’m busy listening and thinking.”

If you are an introvert, know that you can be perceived this way, but remember, too, that listening deeply and thoroughly can give you an advantage when you provide well thought out input after you have processed all of the information presented to you.

A recent article in Entrepreneur indicated the benefits of listening and the importance of honing this soft skill as a business leader. “Typically, we choose leaders for their skill at conveying messages clearly and powerfully. But it is listening that distinguishes the best leaders from the rest. That’s because the better you are at listening, the more likely people will talk to you.”

When leaders listen, they are more likely to actually hear an employee who shares the next big, industry-changing idea. Employees who possess leadership traits have the potential to really thrive when they feel like their ideas are being heard. If you are naturally introverted, you can use your ability to listen and make others feel heard to your advantage.

Mike Jones writes in the Entrepreneur article, “The business world has never been altogether friendly to introverts. Yet roughly four in 10 top executives — including Larry Page, co-founder and now CEO of Google, identify as one. What’s more, their success may not come despite their natural introversion, but because of it, an idea backed up by new research suggesting introverts foster a better team environment than their more outgoing peers.”

The Research
A 2011 study concluded that while extraverts are more likely to be perceived as leaders, their leadership does not always lead to increased group performance. The study by Adam Grant (University of Pennsylvania), Francesa Gino (Harvard University) and David Hofmann (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), concluded “…when employees were not proactive, extraverted leadership was associated with higher group performance. However, when employees were proactive, this pattern reversed, so that extraverted leadership was associated with lower group performance.”

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Millennials at Work: Rocking the Boat or Raising the Bar?

iStock_000021233733XSmallBy Michelle Hendelman

Millennials –the generation famously deemed by the New York Times as the “Go-Nowhere Generation” –are expected to make up 50 percent of the US workforce by 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Aside from a shift in office demographics, what exactly does this influx of Millennials mean for business dynamics, company cultures, and organizational infrastructures?

According to Deloitte’s annual Millennial (Gen Y) survey, this generation is passionate, eager, and ambitious. However, the survey also revealed that half of the respondents don’t feel like they receive enough professional development at work, and the majority (roughly 70 percent) of them see themselves leaving the corporate world at some point in favor of working independently.

There is no question that Gen Y employees bring a different mind-set to the workplace, but what everyone is still trying to figure out is whether or not millennial attitudes are a welcome change or an unwanted burden. Either way, millennials represent the pipeline of future leaders. This means that companies are starting to adjust their practices and policies to adapt to millennials’ demands and expectations.

For example, just last year Goldman Sachs started encouraging junior bankers to take weekends off in an effort to reduce the demands on entry-level employees. While this move negates the traditional idea of junior bankers putting in long hours that almost always include late nights and weekends, it does respond directly to the fact that millennials –of both genders – actually place a high premium on work-life balance.

Does catering to this generation make millennials entitled and lazy –as some suggest –or is it simply a case of companies making a concerted effort to retain young talent before losing them to major competitors or a fledging startup?

What Millennials Want
Deloitte’s Millennial survey of 7,800 individuals in 26 countries is one of the most recent iterations of research dedicated to revealing millennial ideals in order to provide managers with insights and tools for successfully attracting, developing and retaining up and coming Gen Y talent.

According to Deloitte, millennials want to make a difference, and they believe that businesses can positively impact society. However, the report states, “Millennials see a large gap between the potential of business to address the challenges facing society and the actual impact it is having.” This suggests that millennials have a more holistic view of success, appreciating the value of making a difference through their work in addition to ensuring their own financial health.

They also are drawn to organizations that foster innovation, but feel as though traditional business processes are not designed to promote creative thinking and outside-the-box solutions. “They believe the biggest barriers of innovation were management attitude (63 percent), operational structures and procedures (61 percent), and employee skills, attitudes, and diversity (39 percent),” according to Deloitte.

Finally, millennials crave engagement at work in the form of manager feedback, collaboration with their colleagues, and professional development. A recent report published by Network for Good indicated that engaged employees are happier and more productive. While this theory likely transcends generational differences, millennials appear to value engagement much more than their predecessors. According to Network for Good, “If Millennials feel consistently appreciated, engaged, and heard, they feel valued and become happier, more productive, and stimulated.”

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Breaking Down the Gender Paradox on Wall Street

iStock_000009318986XSmallBy Michelle Hendelman

Americans are ready for a new style of leadership according to the latest report from Pershing, which was released in conjunction with International Women’s Day in March. 78 percent of the general public prefer leaders who “listen, consult and ask questions” compared to only 22 percent who enjoy the more traditional “command and control” type of leader. What’s even more telling is that the majority of those surveyed associated the preferred collaborative leadership style to women.

For the third year in a row, Pershing has delivered important research around women in financial services beginning with “Women Are Not a Niche Market,” which was followed by “The 30% Solution: Growing Your Business by Winning and Keeping Women Advisors.” These previous reports uncovered a significant imbalance between the female consumer market and the percentage of female financial advisors represented in the industry.

Now, in their latest report, “Americans Crave a New Kind of Leader – And Women Are Ready to Deliver,” Pershing is drawing attention to the implicit bias that is still driving leadership in financial services said Kim Dellarocca, Global Head of Segment Marketing and Practice Management for Pershing.

Catalyzing the Wall Street Effect
“As a society, we have done a pretty good job of eliminating explicit bias, but now we have to focus on the unconscious bias that could be affecting women’s career advancement,” said Dellarocca, “And one of the best ways to overcome this type of bias is through models.”

She indicated that one example of how models impact women in traditionally male work environments is seen through the “CSI Effect,” which creates a counter stereotype. For example, women now comprise 78 percent of forensic science students. This is largely attributed to the fact that television shows often depict women being successful in that particular career. “What we lack in our industry is a Wall Street Effect, where the pop culture depiction of Wall Street and the reality do not support a counter stereotype suggesting that women will thrive,” noted Dellarocca.

“Can we start a Wall Street Effect?” asked Dellarocca, by helping companies restate the value of diversity and inclusion and encouraging them to establish the models necessary to inspire women to pursue careers on Wall Street.

“We have done all of the right things to increase diversity on Wall Street, but we haven’t see the movement in the numbers that we would have hoped for by now,” acknowledged Dellarocca. “There is a lot of talk, and subsequently a lot of action, but we are not seeing a tick in the right direction.”

To that end, Dellarocca identified three ways in which we can catalyze the
Wall Street Effect.

Open Doors for Women
According to Dellarocca, one of the best ways to kick start the Wall Street Effect is to put women in the roles and give them the support to succeed. “Managers and leaders need to help high potential women bridge the gap between what they believe is possible for them and the opportunities available to them,” she remarked.

Women bring diversity to the table, and not just because of their gender, said Dellarocca. They provide a whole different perspective and can present an entirely new way to approach situations and develop solutions that goes way beyond gender. In essence, creating more diversity within the highest levels of an organization can contribute to breaking down groupthink and increasing investor trust going forward.

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Young, female AND successful: What Stops Us from Becoming CEO?

Confident young business woman in black suit against whiteBy Nneka Orji

Age discrimination against older women has been widely discussed in the media. The assumption is that ageism applies mostly to older women however this is not necessarily the case. A 2011 report from the UK’s Department for Work and Pension (DWP) highlighted that those who experienced age discrimination were more likely to be in younger age brackets, “with under-25s at least twice as likely to have experienced it, than other age groups.” This has significant implications on our future female leaders – “Generation Y,” also known as “millennials.”

According to the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, 40 percent of Generation Y women reported experiencing generational discrimination. The report stated, “Being female tended to intensify age prejudice and ‘double jeopardy’ was reinforcing rather than simply additive.” The report also found that both forms of discrimination –age and gender – led to female millennials being held to different standards, passed over for promotions, and most disturbingly, being perceived as less competent.

What is the impact on the future workforce if some of its future leaders are faced with at least two layers of barriers in the early stages of their careers? Moreover, if female millennials are part of the pipeline of future female leaders, what initiatives are focused on ensuring that ten years from now we still are not looking at such a heavy tilt towards male leaders as the norm?

After all, we have seen that investing in women in senior manager roles is clearly beneficial; Catalyst found a 26 percent difference in return on invested capital (ROIC) between the top-quartile companies (those with 19-44 percent female board representation) and bottom quartile companies (those with zero female directors). With this in mind, organisations have introduced a number of initiatives to increase gender diversity, targeted especially at their senior management teams.

The good news is that female millennials are starting on a more equal footing with their male counterparts. The Pew Research Center published its 2013 survey results which reflected the narrowing of the gender wage gap. Although millennials are more confident in their abilities compared to previous female cohorts –and only 15 percent of those surveyed had experienced gender discrimination – they were still less likely to aspire to top management positions in their organisations. Compared to 24 percent of Generation Y men who showed no interest in top management roles, 34 percent of the female millennials surveyed shared the same sentiment. If over one-third of the world’s potential female leaders have no desire to be a leader within the organisation, surely something needs to change.

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When Hiring a New Team Member, Do You Hire People Like Yourself?

Business meeting.By Irene Solaz

It is well established that diverse teams avoid the dreaded “groupthink”, the practice of minimizing conflict and reaching a consensus decision without thinking critically about alternative ideas or viewpoints. According to Irving Janis, the social psychologist who coined the term, groups are most vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.

In your team there are probably 20-year old interns eager to learn and coworkers with different life experiences and varying perspectives stemming from different backgrounds, cultures, and even religious beliefs. You will probably hear all of their suggestions, but are you really listening? Will you write them all down, or give precedence to opinions expressed by those who share a similar background with you? This has historically been an issue for women, who have found that when they speak up in a meeting, it is often ignored until a male coworker voices the same idea.

Last year, Harvard Business Review interviewed 24 CEOs from around the globe who ran companies and corporate divisions that had earned reputations for embracing people from all kinds of backgrounds. Great Leaders Who Make the Mix Work featured Ernst & Young CEO Jim Turley, who delves into the uncomfortable realization that he was allowing these groupthink dynamics to take place at EY when a woman at the company pointed it out to him. He immediately corrected his behavior.

It’s not just men who can be guilty of allowing these conditions to take place. Even members of marginalized groups can silence the voices of those who are not like them. As a matter of fact, for 30-years there has been research conducted around the “think manager, think male” phenomenon. Women have been proven to be just as prone to assigning leadership traits to men and not other women like themselves.

Reducing Your Bias When Hiring
Hiring someone with whom we share similar backgrounds, beliefs, or values is usually done unconsciously, and it is important to stop hiring workers simply because they are similar to us.

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Give It To Us Straight: Your Soft Feedback Isn’t Helping Us

Senior business man discussing project on laptop with staffBy Nneka Orji

Feedback is a core part of self-development and all too often male colleagues and managers are reluctant to give direct feedback to female colleagues 79 percent of the time. Why? According to Barbara Annis and John Gray, authors of Work with Me, it’s because men felt they have to walk on eggshells around women and hold back criticism to women during performance reviews out of concern they may upset their female colleague and provoke an “emotional reaction.”

The issue was also highlighted in a September 2011 McKinsey Quarterly, which reported that despite the best intentions of senior executives from a diversity agenda perspective, “unintended performance bias and softer feedback” mean that the paths of female and male colleagues will diverge.

Are the majority of our male colleagues justified in their apprehension to have performance conversations with women? Are women more sensitive to feedback?

The Facts
The short answer to the latter question is yes. Women are more “sensitive” to feedback, but let’s be clear: “sensitive” isn’t always associated with anger, tears, or other supposedly gendered forms of emotionality.

A 2007 study by Soussan Djamasbi and Eleanor Loiacono found that women are more influenced by feedback, which means taking feedback more personally. This can be beneficial, but also potentially damaging.

The results of the study demonstrated the impact of negative feedback on the decisions men and women make and found that “women attach greater emotional value to rejection.” So, why not change the way feedback is given to ensure it is treated as an opportunity to grow and not as an outright rejection?

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How Being ‘Happy to Help’ Can Have an Impact on Your Career

iStock_000014539701XSmallBy Tina Vasquez, Managing Editor

Recently, Sharon Meers, Head of Magento Enterprise Strategy at eBay Inc., asserted that people “feel entitled to female help” at work.

The gendered assumption that women enjoy being accommodating and supportive seem to extend into the office with early findings from Frank Flynn, a professor at Columbia Business School, revealing that women are more likely to be asked to do favors or help out their coworkers. When they do, however, they are less appreciated for it than their male counterparts.

Flynn examined employees at two companies, finding that women were more likely than men to be asked for help and were also more likely to grant those requests. When those who received favors were asked how “indebted” they felt to the person granting them, women were appreciated less than men. It was also found that women who seem more “agreeable” are even less appreciated than women who were seen as less agreeable but provided help.

As a result, women are spending important time overloaded on menial tasks, such as arranging office parties.

In her writing on the research, Meers said that we’re doing our daughters “no favors when we support the belief that ‘women are happy to help.’’’

Carol Frohlinger, co-author of Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It: 99 Ways to Win the Respect You Deserve, the Success You’ve Earned, and the Life You Want”, says that from childhood, girls are conditioned to be “nice” and “helpful”, but these over-caring characteristics prove to be a disservice when women enter the ultra-competitive workplace.

“There are so many assumptions made about women in the workplace. If they’re asked to do a favor; if they’re asked to take on additional work; if they’re asked to stay late; it’s assumed they’ll be grateful to do these taxing, inconvenient things,” says Frohlinger, a strategic partner of theglasshammer.com. “These stereotypes about women being nurturing and collaborative and happy to help are pervasive. Men in the workplace feel entitled to our time and they are unappreciative of it when they receive it.”

Just Say No
Given that so much of the problem is rooted in deeply-ingrained assumptions surrounding gender roles, being unappreciated in the workplace isn’t an easy issue to overcome. However, there are strategies that can help begin to unravel this deeply troubling phenomenon. The most important of which: learning to say no.

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Being the ‘Other’: How Othering Holds Women of Color Back

African-American Woman with computerBy Tina Vasquez, Managing Editor

Contrary to commonly held stereotypes, women who feel racially/ethnically different are not less qualified to lead. According to Catalyst’s latest report, Feeling Different: Being the “Other” in US Workplaces, which is based on data from high-potential women and men who have MBA degrees, differences in experience, such as the time since they received their degrees, do not explain the gaps in rank that exist between women who feel racially/ethnically different and those who did not or between these women and men who felt different. It appears as if a great source of these gaps is something called “otherness.”

Feeling Different & Being Excluded
As defined by Catalyst, otherness is about being different or having characteristics that set you apart from the dominant group or groups in a given context. Those who feel like an “other” not only feel different, but also feel separated from the essential aspects of a group. The issue is that when women of color, or anyone who feels in the minority in the workplace, do not experience belonging in a group, they may consequently be excluded.

Don’t be mistaken: This isn’t just about “feelings” or being excluded from after-work drinks – though exclusion from informal networks can be a concern. Othering translates into a serious problem for women of color wanting to get ahead and for companies who need diversity to compete on the global stage. The report states:

“Those who experience otherness in the workplace are by definition not part of the dominant power structure at the top of a company. Many people believe that their lack of advancement is a result of a lack of insider knowledge or training—for instance, not knowing that they should seek out mentors within their company or that a lack of visible projects can hold them back. Our findings, however, suggest that it is not lack of knowledge, but rather lack of access, that impedes the advancement of those who feel different from the majority in their workgroup.”

According to Catalyst’s report, women who felt racially/ethnically different were the least likely to be at the senior executive/CEO level (10 percent) compared to men who felt different (19 percent) and those who did not feel different (16 percent women; 25 percent men). Of women who felt racially/ethnically different, 48.2 percent had received two or more promotions. In contrast, 51.4 percent of men who felt racially/ethnically different had received two or more promotions as had 55.6 percent of women and 58.4 percent of men who did not feel racially/ethnically different.

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Finding Women-Friendly Employers: Look for the accolades and then look beyond them

iStock_000012303174XSmallBy Jennifer Keck

More than ever, companies in the financial services sector are recruiting top female talent, but many employers have yet to address the career challenges women face. Lack of mentoring, leadership programs, and flexible scheduling options steer women off an otherwise promising career track.

When it comes to getting ahead, a women-friendly employer is vital to your success. Here are a few ways you can ensure you’re making a move to a company that goes out of its way to recruit and retain women:

Look for the Accolades
Companies with women-friendly policies often receive the recognition they deserve. Catalyst is a great place to start your search – and it’s an organization we often feature on The Glass Hammer. The organization awards companies for excellence in addressing diversity issues, while also serving as a resource for businesses and job seekers.

Other resources include the National Association for Female Executives, which publishes a list of top companies for executive women, Working Mother Magazine, known for its list of 100 Best Companies, and Vault.com, a site that posts company rankings, salary data, and more.

For anyone working in accounting, Accounting Today Magazine is a must on your subscription list. You should also find out if your potential employer is included in the Accounting MOVE Project, a yearly report that profiles firms that are making headway in retaining and advancing women.

Evaluate Programs and Policies
Companies often emphasize diversity hiring, work-life balance, and/or benefits packages on their website. However, that doesn’t mean they have impactful programs in place. Weeding out the posers from the real deal is essential.

“Some firms decorate their website with a string of awards that they have won,” says Joanne Cleaver, President of Wilson-Taylor Associates. “If they are claiming that they are award-winning, or on a ‘best’ list, then it is reasonable to ask them quite specifically why they won those awards and how you could expect to experience that award-winning culture in everyday life.”

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