By Robin Madell (San Francisco)
As we get older, the way we think about work and contribution changes. Many women of a certain age are reconsidering earlier paths. After years of paying dues to become a senior executive, partner, or board member in their respective industries, an increasing number are deciding that it’s not what they really want after all. Some are opting to take extended time off for soul-searching, or leaving prestigious jobs to seek something more closely aligned with their current interests and passions.
What’s behind this shift, and why are so many women doing it? As we progress in our careers and encounter political situations, difficult people, and issues we can’t control, our perspectives change. But there’s more to it than that. Clearly part of the issue is that we made our career decisions when we were much younger, before we had solidified our true preferences. Once decades of our career are behind us, we know much better who we are and what we want. Armed with that self-knowledge, many women are asking, now what?
Research has shown that women tend to find an increased sense of personal identity and more clearly define their values in midlife. In doing so, a common value that often emerges is the desire to give back or contribute to a greater good, which is often behind the internal drive to make a midlife career change, says Keith Weber, author of Rethinking Retirement. “This need to give back tends to stay with the individual until it is satisfied, meaning that those who fail to act on it often experience regrets, whereas those who do act on it tend to show fewer regrets and subsequently greater well-being later in life,” explains Weber.
But making such sweeping alterations in your life is not easy. Career coach Dorothy Tannahill Moran explains that with career change, you can’t expect to just grit your teeth and push through your fears. “Most careers you work 40 hours a week or more and if you make a mistake, you’re living the mistake almost daily,” says Moran. “Your career is not a tidy compartment that has no effect on the rest of your life. It’s a huge part of your life and has implications with almost every other part, including financial impact.”
Change also breeds anxiety because we face so many unknowns. We can’t always imagine that a new situation will be better than the one we’re in, says Patti DeNucci, author of The Intentional Networker. “No matter what the circumstances of change, the same basic fears surface,” says DeNucci. “What will my days be like? Will I enjoy it? Will I be able to attract business and clients I enjoy? Will I be able to make a good living? Will people respect me and will I make a difference? What if no one is interested in what I have to say? The possibility of having to ‘go back’ to something you’ve left behind because you outgrew it or no longer love it is scary.”
To address these questions and more, The Glass Hammer profiled a number of women whose careers began in finance, law, technology, and other industries, but who made a midlife career gear-shift. These women share what they’ve learned firsthand about deciding if you’re ready to switch, overcoming fear of change, and transitioning to a work-life that fits better with age.
Voice of Experience: Ivka Kalus-Bystricky, Portfolio Manager, Pax World
Voices of ExperienceAccording to Ivka Kalus-Bystricky, Portfolio Manager at Pax World Funds, one of the most critical lessons she’s realized over the years is the importance of learning to cope – with both lows and highs.
“This business can be a somewhat bipolar world, particularly in volatile markets such as we have seen of late,” she said. “Although you may not fully realize that before you get in, you really do have to develop coping strategies. Investing is ultimately about putting all your bets on the table against the market and against your peers. And, like the song goes, ‘you gotta know when to hold ’em and you gotta know when to fold ’em.’”
She continued, “Your hand can be either a winner or a loser, and it really depends on what everybody else is holding. It comes down to having a strong, consistent investment discipline, and to timing, and perhaps a little bit to luck on occasion, but there’s always a good deal of uncertainty. You go through long periods of time when what you’re holding – your strategy – is just not working, and it can get quite frustrating. But then sometimes, to use a surfing metaphor, you’re right in the tube. You feel like the biggest genius in the world.”
“You have to learn to attenuate both the highs and the lows. You have to develop a really structured framework to prevent your emotions from getting in the way,” she explained. “It means taking a disciplined approach to the market.”
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Rethinking Career Choices at Midlife
Managing ChangeAs we get older, the way we think about work and contribution changes. Many women of a certain age are reconsidering earlier paths. After years of paying dues to become a senior executive, partner, or board member in their respective industries, an increasing number are deciding that it’s not what they really want after all. Some are opting to take extended time off for soul-searching, or leaving prestigious jobs to seek something more closely aligned with their current interests and passions.
What’s behind this shift, and why are so many women doing it? As we progress in our careers and encounter political situations, difficult people, and issues we can’t control, our perspectives change. But there’s more to it than that. Clearly part of the issue is that we made our career decisions when we were much younger, before we had solidified our true preferences. Once decades of our career are behind us, we know much better who we are and what we want. Armed with that self-knowledge, many women are asking, now what?
Research has shown that women tend to find an increased sense of personal identity and more clearly define their values in midlife. In doing so, a common value that often emerges is the desire to give back or contribute to a greater good, which is often behind the internal drive to make a midlife career change, says Keith Weber, author of Rethinking Retirement. “This need to give back tends to stay with the individual until it is satisfied, meaning that those who fail to act on it often experience regrets, whereas those who do act on it tend to show fewer regrets and subsequently greater well-being later in life,” explains Weber.
But making such sweeping alterations in your life is not easy. Career coach Dorothy Tannahill Moran explains that with career change, you can’t expect to just grit your teeth and push through your fears. “Most careers you work 40 hours a week or more and if you make a mistake, you’re living the mistake almost daily,” says Moran. “Your career is not a tidy compartment that has no effect on the rest of your life. It’s a huge part of your life and has implications with almost every other part, including financial impact.”
Change also breeds anxiety because we face so many unknowns. We can’t always imagine that a new situation will be better than the one we’re in, says Patti DeNucci, author of The Intentional Networker. “No matter what the circumstances of change, the same basic fears surface,” says DeNucci. “What will my days be like? Will I enjoy it? Will I be able to attract business and clients I enjoy? Will I be able to make a good living? Will people respect me and will I make a difference? What if no one is interested in what I have to say? The possibility of having to ‘go back’ to something you’ve left behind because you outgrew it or no longer love it is scary.”
To address these questions and more, The Glass Hammer profiled a number of women whose careers began in finance, law, technology, and other industries, but who made a midlife career gear-shift. These women share what they’ve learned firsthand about deciding if you’re ready to switch, overcoming fear of change, and transitioning to a work-life that fits better with age.
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Movers and Shakers: Lisa Davis, Director, Global Product Manager, Global Transaction Services, Citi
Movers and ShakersNetworking is critical, according to Lisa Davis, Director and Global Product Manager, Citi Global Transaction Services. She said, “I want to mention the power of networking. You need to develop a network of people who can help you. Be sure that you’re networking on various levels.”
According to Davis, “Networking is a necessary tool that is underutilized. I believe the sooner you realize the power of networking, the greater your chances are of successfully navigating your career. This is especially true for women, minorities, and the LGBT population.”
“Many people are afraid to network,” she continued. “I for one am a typical introvert and I’m not always comfortable taking the initiative to meet people and interact – but when you talk about true networking, that’s what you do! Its not just about meeting people, it’s about developing relationships rather than just collecting business cards.”
She added, “When networking, you should always have your elevator speech ready and you should always make sure you have an intelligent answer and something relevant to add.”
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Being Yourself at Work: Avoiding Stereotypes and Building a Solid Strategic Network
Featured, Managing ChangeMembers 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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Women’s Role in Fixing the “Pyramid Problem:” A New Approach
Expert AnswersThis is not news to anyone who frequents this site: women are still not proportionally represented at the upper levels of business. Women represent about half of entry-level employees and lower level management positions. But at each level up the corporate hierarchy, the percentage of women is lower.
According to Catalyst, in 2011 in the Fortune 500 women represented only 14.1% of executive officers, 7.5% of top earners and 3.2% of CEO’s. In law firms in 2010, Catalyst reports, women made up 45% of associates but only 19% of partners. These declining percentages form a pyramid: the “pyramid problem.”
As I climbed the corporate hierarchy to the C-level, I read a stack of books (many very good) designed to help women navigate the “male dominated” business world. From those books I learned, for example, that women don’t (and must in order to succeed) speak up, ask for what they want, toot their own horn, take risks, speak more confidently and take things less personally. In other words, they need to conform to masculine norms. A recent research report by Catalyst, sadly, concludes that, even when women do all these things, they still lag behind men.
I also learned (from those books and my personal experience) that women face the double bind: If women act too feminine, they aren’t seen as leaders; if they act too masculine, they aren’t likeable (and may be called the “B” word). To succeed, women must get it just right.
All this leads one to think of the pyramid problem as a woman’s problem that is theirs to fix.
That hasn’t worked.
This is more than a problem for women. It is a problem for business. The pyramid problem results in substantial, unnecessary costs for business and it prevents business from realizing the documented upsides of gender diversity. It’s time to shift the focus from how women need to change in order to succeed to how corporate culture can change in order to achieve gender diversity in leadership. That takes framing and talking about the issue differently.
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35 Under 35: Marion S. Regnier, Senior Associate, PwC
35 Under 35“One of the things I have learned is that it’s not enough to be good at what you’re doing. You also have to network,” began Marion S. Regnier, Senior Associate in Technology consulting at PwC.
She continued, “They tell you that in school, but it’s not necessarily something I started doing when I started working. But I’ve realized that you can be very dedicated and excellent, but you still have to branch out.”
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Tough Questions: What If You’re a “Token” Woman?
Managing ChangeA company taking a serious interest in appointing more women to its board doesn’t seem as if it could ever be a bad thing, but in corporate America things aren’t always black and white. Women account for half of the U.S. workforce, yet hold only 16 percent of the seats on Fortune 500 boards. So, how is intentionally seeking out women to appoint ever a bad thing? If it leads to tokenism. If a company is only looking to improve its gender diversity appearance, without tapping into the benefits of true diversity, being that sole woman in a sea of men can be lonely and frustrating.
Harriet Green, chief executive of Premier Farnell, recently wrote that corporations need to go beyond tokenism and move towards real acceptance of the value that a diverse mix can bring. “Women don’t want tokenism. We want the opportunity to show what we can do and be measured on our performance,” Green wrote. Something a CEO told Green also rings true: “One woman on the board is a token, two is a minority; three means you are really getting there.”
The problem is that three women sitting on the board of the same Fortune 500 company is almost unheard of – even in 2012. Some companies really are trying by introducing women and other minorities to the boardroom, and of course, that means starting with one or two diverse individuals. But some boards are just trying to fend off criticism, while hoping to maintain the status quo. What should you do if you realize you were only hired to make a team or board look diverse and your contributions are not being taken seriously?
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Voice of Experience: Nanette Buziak, Senior Vice President, Head of Equity Trading, ING Investment Management
Voices of Experience“It feels like we have to work, in some cases, almost twice as hard as men to prove ourselves. And this becomes more of a delicate area as we progress through our careers,” said Nanette Buziak, Senior Vice President and Head of Equity Trading at ING Investment Management.
She continued, “We don’t want to come across as too aggressive, and that can mean walking the right balance of being aggressive and passionate about what you do, so that you are considered for opportunities as they come up.”
Buziak has learned to walk this balance, and she believes that the financial services industry is becoming more accepting of ambitious women. Recently honored with a Trailblazer Award by Traders Magazine, she told a room of 200 during her acceptance speech:
Hopefully, as passionate and high-performing women become more visible in the industry, that balancing-act will become easier.
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A Checklist for 2012: Learning From Mentors
Mentors and SponsorsWhenever I am standing at a crossroads, faced with a challenge or swamped with work, I make checklists. With a new year upon us, I wanted to share a few action items that I have learned from my mentors and a checklist that has helped me achieve my career goals. Whether it’s recognizing impressive characteristics in other people, learning a new language or dressing up, these measures can help you advance in 2012.
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Voice of Experience: Lee A. Merkle-Raymond, Strategic Solutions Executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Voices of ExperienceLee A. Merkle-Raymond, Strategic Solutions Executive at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is enthusiastic about the career opportunities within the banking industry. “Banking is core to the local economy, the national economy, the global economy,” she said. “Banking is a great opportunity for career growth – and a firm like Bank of America Merrill Lynch has a wealth of job types and roles. If you have the drive and can deliver results, you can have just about any type of career you’d like in a large global bank.”
She explained that the ability to help her clients achieve their strategic objectives – like raising capital, making acquisitions, or achieving other goals – is a point of pride for her. “Often the solutions that are most complex are the toughest to get through. But the greater the challenge, the greater your feeling of accomplishment.”
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