You’ve heard about the power of positive thinking and the perils of negative thinking, but when it comes to your ability to reach goals or make dreams happen, the polarities of positive and negative thinking may matter less than getting the friction right between them.
In her HBR article, Gabrielle Oettingen, professor of psychology at NYU and University of Hamburg who has studied human motivation for twenty years, suggests that while negative thinking will never deliver you at the doorstep to your next goal, positive thinking – especially in the form of fantasizing about outcomes – hides some dangerous pitfalls that could keep you from the stairs.
Positive Outcome versus Pursuit
Achieving a goal takes some muster in walking the steps to get there. Even if they are small steps, it’s important to energize yourself towards taking them.
In their research paper, Kappes & Oettingen discuss that “positive fantasies do not lead people to anticipate having to exert cumbersome effort. Instead, positive fantasies allow people to embellish idealized paths to idealized future outcomes.”
Imagining yourself having already coasted without obstacle to your goal can be counterproductive. You mentally feel as though you’ve already arrived at your goal in the present moment, so you relax rather than energize. This can “obscure the need to invest effort in tasks that demand effort.”
Kappes & Oettingen found that fantasizing about a positive outcome can inhibit generating the energy you need to pursue it. They observed that positive fantasies about outcomes created lower physiological (systolic blood pressure) and behavioral energization than negative or neutral fantasies. The research showed “a causal relationship between positive fantasies about desired futures and low energy devoted to their realization.”
As Oettingen writes in HBR, “You’re less motivated to buck up and make the strong, persistent effort that is usually required to realize challenging but feasible wishes.”
They found, “Instead of promoting achievement, positive fantasies will sap job-seekers of the energy to pound the pavement, and drain the lovelorn of the energy to approach the one they like. Fantasies that are less positive – that question whether an ideal future can be achieved, and that depict obstacles, problems, and setbacks – should be more beneficial for mustering the energy needed to attain actual success.”
Easy versus Hard Steps
In further research, Kappes, Sharma & Oettingen found that when potential donors to charitable causes were encouraged to fantasize an ideal resolution to a current problem, they were less willing to put bigger and meaningful resources into actually helping address the problem.
When the demands for time or money were easy, or required relatively few resources, the positive thinkers were in step with the control group. But when the problem asked for more commitment from them – more time, more money, more effort – they folded. Since they’d already fantasized the ideal future as true, the effort to get there seems “overly demanding” now.
Fantasizing about the ideal outcome can mean not only failing to build up the energy to move towards it but also at some level rejecting that it should require significant energy and resources. That’s no recipe for being the agent of your dreams, wishes, or goals.
Positivity Gone Sour
As Oettingen writes in the European Review of Social Psychology, fantasies about attaining a positive future predict low effort and little success. What happens when you fantasize that a future outcome is highly accessible to you and yet your reality fails to meet it – possibly because you never harnessed the necessary drive and resolve to get there?
The opposite of positivity. The more we fail to reach the outcomes we believe should be accessible to us, the more it grinds us down. Oettingen notes, “Low effort and little success translate into more depressive symptoms over time.” This is whether it comes to an external goal (writing that book) or a personal desire (creating more healthy boundaries).
Unrealistic optimism has a habit of ending in hurt, when success doesn’t walk on over and take you by the hand to skip away into tomorrow, the way it did (kind of) in your mind.
“Mental Contrasting” – Put the Positivity into the Process
Rather than solely “indulging” in thoughts of a positive future or solely “dwelling” in the obstacles of a present reality, Oettingen has put forth both in papers and in her book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation that the power is in “mentally contrasting” the two.
Oettingen developed the process “W-O-O-P”: “Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan.” Her book applies this process to three areas: health, personal and professional relationships, and performing at work.
Step #1 Wish
First, you bring the wish you have for the future to mind, a goal or change that is challenging but possible to achieve in a certain time frame. Maybe it’s getting the lead role on a project team.
Steo #2 Outcome
Second, you let your mind run with fantasizing about the future if your wish came true – what does the best possible outcome feel like? Maybe you imagine yourself in the position and handling it brilliantly, feeling confident and strong.
Step #3 Obstacle
Then, you mentally elaborate on the current reality that stands in the way of realizing this future – what obstacles exist? Bringing up obstacles isn’t negativity – it’s taking a glance at the map so you plan your route strategically. Oettingen advises to ask yourself, “”What is it in me that stands in the way?” simply because you can’t control others. Maybe you realize you have a tendency to undermine the critical role you play in the team’s success because you focus on enabling them.
Step #4 Plan
Make a plan for how you can overcome the obstacle. When it comes to overcoming ingrained behaviors or dealing with specific obstacle scenarios, Oettingen suggests using an implementation intervention such as an “if/then” statement. For example, “If I talk about the team’s success, I’ll play up my personal approach to getting the best results from a team.”
Through Mental Contrasting, Oettingen and Schwörer argue that you are now linking the future to the reality: “It creates determined goal pursuit, reveals the critical situation (obstacle of reality), and links the reality with the instrumental action to overcome the reality (goal-directed action).”
If you have high expectations on being able to overcome the reality, this leads to increased effort, more engagement, and hence more success. The positivity comes in being able to envision yourself taking agency in overcoming the obstacles to make your wish attainable.
On the other hand, if the “WOOP” practice reveals low expectations in being able to overcome obstacles, you may want to discern to put your resources and attention elsewhere.
When we hone our positive thinking power towards our ability to take each necessary step towards our wishes – even the challenging ones that ask for our strength, humility, or perseverance- then positivity can stop being only a beacon in the distance, or a warm feeling for something we’ve yet to do, and become a guiding light that keeps us moving on the path to what we most want.
By Aimee Hansen
4 Steps to Put Positive Thinking Into Action for Success At Work
Career Advice, Next LevelIn her HBR article, Gabrielle Oettingen, professor of psychology at NYU and University of Hamburg who has studied human motivation for twenty years, suggests that while negative thinking will never deliver you at the doorstep to your next goal, positive thinking – especially in the form of fantasizing about outcomes – hides some dangerous pitfalls that could keep you from the stairs.
Positive Outcome versus Pursuit
Achieving a goal takes some muster in walking the steps to get there. Even if they are small steps, it’s important to energize yourself towards taking them.
In their research paper, Kappes & Oettingen discuss that “positive fantasies do not lead people to anticipate having to exert cumbersome effort. Instead, positive fantasies allow people to embellish idealized paths to idealized future outcomes.”
Imagining yourself having already coasted without obstacle to your goal can be counterproductive. You mentally feel as though you’ve already arrived at your goal in the present moment, so you relax rather than energize. This can “obscure the need to invest effort in tasks that demand effort.”
Kappes & Oettingen found that fantasizing about a positive outcome can inhibit generating the energy you need to pursue it. They observed that positive fantasies about outcomes created lower physiological (systolic blood pressure) and behavioral energization than negative or neutral fantasies. The research showed “a causal relationship between positive fantasies about desired futures and low energy devoted to their realization.”
As Oettingen writes in HBR, “You’re less motivated to buck up and make the strong, persistent effort that is usually required to realize challenging but feasible wishes.”
They found, “Instead of promoting achievement, positive fantasies will sap job-seekers of the energy to pound the pavement, and drain the lovelorn of the energy to approach the one they like. Fantasies that are less positive – that question whether an ideal future can be achieved, and that depict obstacles, problems, and setbacks – should be more beneficial for mustering the energy needed to attain actual success.”
Easy versus Hard Steps
In further research, Kappes, Sharma & Oettingen found that when potential donors to charitable causes were encouraged to fantasize an ideal resolution to a current problem, they were less willing to put bigger and meaningful resources into actually helping address the problem.
When the demands for time or money were easy, or required relatively few resources, the positive thinkers were in step with the control group. But when the problem asked for more commitment from them – more time, more money, more effort – they folded. Since they’d already fantasized the ideal future as true, the effort to get there seems “overly demanding” now.
Fantasizing about the ideal outcome can mean not only failing to build up the energy to move towards it but also at some level rejecting that it should require significant energy and resources. That’s no recipe for being the agent of your dreams, wishes, or goals.
Positivity Gone Sour
As Oettingen writes in the European Review of Social Psychology, fantasies about attaining a positive future predict low effort and little success. What happens when you fantasize that a future outcome is highly accessible to you and yet your reality fails to meet it – possibly because you never harnessed the necessary drive and resolve to get there?
The opposite of positivity. The more we fail to reach the outcomes we believe should be accessible to us, the more it grinds us down. Oettingen notes, “Low effort and little success translate into more depressive symptoms over time.” This is whether it comes to an external goal (writing that book) or a personal desire (creating more healthy boundaries).
Unrealistic optimism has a habit of ending in hurt, when success doesn’t walk on over and take you by the hand to skip away into tomorrow, the way it did (kind of) in your mind.
“Mental Contrasting” – Put the Positivity into the Process
Rather than solely “indulging” in thoughts of a positive future or solely “dwelling” in the obstacles of a present reality, Oettingen has put forth both in papers and in her book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation that the power is in “mentally contrasting” the two.
Oettingen developed the process “W-O-O-P”: “Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan.” Her book applies this process to three areas: health, personal and professional relationships, and performing at work.
Step #1 Wish
First, you bring the wish you have for the future to mind, a goal or change that is challenging but possible to achieve in a certain time frame. Maybe it’s getting the lead role on a project team.
Steo #2 Outcome
Second, you let your mind run with fantasizing about the future if your wish came true – what does the best possible outcome feel like? Maybe you imagine yourself in the position and handling it brilliantly, feeling confident and strong.
Step #3 Obstacle
Then, you mentally elaborate on the current reality that stands in the way of realizing this future – what obstacles exist? Bringing up obstacles isn’t negativity – it’s taking a glance at the map so you plan your route strategically. Oettingen advises to ask yourself, “”What is it in me that stands in the way?” simply because you can’t control others. Maybe you realize you have a tendency to undermine the critical role you play in the team’s success because you focus on enabling them.
Step #4 Plan
Make a plan for how you can overcome the obstacle. When it comes to overcoming ingrained behaviors or dealing with specific obstacle scenarios, Oettingen suggests using an implementation intervention such as an “if/then” statement. For example, “If I talk about the team’s success, I’ll play up my personal approach to getting the best results from a team.”
Through Mental Contrasting, Oettingen and Schwörer argue that you are now linking the future to the reality: “It creates determined goal pursuit, reveals the critical situation (obstacle of reality), and links the reality with the instrumental action to overcome the reality (goal-directed action).”
If you have high expectations on being able to overcome the reality, this leads to increased effort, more engagement, and hence more success. The positivity comes in being able to envision yourself taking agency in overcoming the obstacles to make your wish attainable.
On the other hand, if the “WOOP” practice reveals low expectations in being able to overcome obstacles, you may want to discern to put your resources and attention elsewhere.
When we hone our positive thinking power towards our ability to take each necessary step towards our wishes – even the challenging ones that ask for our strength, humility, or perseverance- then positivity can stop being only a beacon in the distance, or a warm feeling for something we’ve yet to do, and become a guiding light that keeps us moving on the path to what we most want.
By Aimee Hansen
Got Your Sights Set On A Promotion? Don’t Assume They Know How Good You Are
Career Advice, Next LevelIf you think a resume is overkill when applying for an internal promotion, you would be wrong. A winning resume can dramatically increase your odds of securing that new role, particularly when you’re competing with outside candidates with brand-new achievement–based resumes.
Although, external candidates widen the pool, you have one big thing going for you. You’re a known quantity. This means they don’t have to worry whether or not you’re a good fit for the company culture.
Hopefully, you also know some, if not all, of the players that might include the hiring manager, the HR team, and anyone else with influence.
That said, you still need to sell yourself to get the job.
Many people assume that if they’ve been with an employer for several years that their reputation precedes them. They mistakenly think that if they’ve generated X amount of dollars by landing an important client or saved time by streamlining the end-of-month close process that the right people will know.
Unfortunately, they may not. The only way to be sure is to tell them, on your resume.
Whether you’ve been with your employer for 10 months or even 10 years, you can’t expect those in decision-making roles to be aware of how much you have accomplished. You need to sell yourself with an achievement-based resume geared towards your target role. Here are five ways to make a positive impression with your resume.
Emphasize Leadership – If your target position is a step up, it’s essential to identify instances that demonstrate your leadership abilities. Activities like training, supervising and mentoring staff; participating in company leadership or management development programs; any outside professional development or certifications can increase your leadership quotient.
Put the “I” in Team – Dealing with team projects can be tricky, but it doesn’t have to be. While acknowleging the team’s success is important, you need to consider the specific contributions you made. Maybe you contributed some particular knowledge or served as unofficial team leader. Perhaps you were the one who got buy-in from the boss to move forward.
Identify Initiative – Mention any cases whenyou stepped up to take on additional responsibilities, particularly if they had an impact on your department or the company. For example, maybe you managed a project for your current supervisor so he or she could focus on other things like business development. Even better if it ties to an important new client.
Underscore Relationships – Consider any instances where you excelled in relationship building. Maybe you were part of an interdepartmental or cross-company team. Perhaps you collaborated with the head of another department to solve a company-wide problem or negotated better terms with a vendor. Again, even better if your actions had a positive impact on the company.
Showcase Recognition – Think about any recognition you’ve earned during your career. Have you received any company or industry awards? Were you selected for a prestigious leadership program? Acknowledged by a happy client or two? It might even be something from an employment review.
Wherever you are in your career begin keeping track of your accomplishments today. Create a “brag book” with letters from clients, notes from colleagues, and performance reviews. Keep it at home not your office, just in case.
Spend some time looking back on your current and previous positions to identify any challenges you have faced. Maybe you took over a department with low morale or came onboard only to find outdated equipment and/or processes. Next look at the steps you took to solve the problem or at least mitigate it. Finish with the results. If you were part of a team remember to include your contributions.
Demonstrating how you overcame challenges will set you apart from other candidates, internal and external, applying for the same position. It will help to tell your career story. Update your resume every six months so you’ll be ready when the perfect opportunity arises.
Author Bio:
Annette Richmond, principal of career intelligence Resume Writing & Career Services, is a Certified Resume Writer, Certified LinkedIn Profile Writer, and former recruiter. Her career advice has been featured in notable media outlets including Monster, Vault, Business Insider, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. Annette’s work was selected for Resumes For Dummies (August 2015).
Dealing with a Narcissist at work
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
No matter what the job entails task-wise (competence assumed), it is the politics and the inter-personal dynamics that will make or break you.
Image via Shutterstock
Personality, we all have one, but some people definitely make the workday easier or tougher due to their personality quirks.
The Fall 2016 edition of the HBR’s On Point magazine explores working with different types of people at work including stars who are narcissistic and detrimental to team performance, morale and culture. I think timing is everything and it is no coincidence that this season’s issue on this topic coincides with an election in the US as the articles included span 15 years of research. Other articles include a coaching the alpha male, toxic employees and sabotaging colleagues.
Teams with members who have a narcissistic personality in them often suffer the most individually and as a group, as the person in question often has no clue that the impact of their actions is hard on others.
Even if their have the best of intentions for themselves and if they think they are being benevolent, it is literally impossible for them to think out long term consequences due to the need to look good in the moment. Remind you of anyone?
These folks are often star performers, often male (although not limited to males) and therefore get away with bad behaviors due to their “numbers” or other specific skills. The trouble manifests when they are allowed to run meetings, chastise support staff and generally get an ounce of power or responsibility that they interpret as power to be use and abused.
How many times have you seen this person interrupt others or shut down team brainstorming ideas? How many staff members has he or she upset?
So, how do you deal with someone who is demeaning, demotivating and discrediting the work of others and causing a cultural issue by making bad behavior acceptable?
If you are the boss, manager or leader then you have an opportunity to ensure that the team structure focuses experts on their narrow role such as keeping narcissistic sales people selling. Role and task definition makes it easier for all people to know what they need to do and also need not to do. Conversations around behavior change absent of structural change are often wasted on this person and coaching is not impossible but not easy.
If you are not the boss, then work for companies that just do not tolerate bad behavior (rare, I know) or keeps these folks contained so that they are self-contained and do not become toxic employees or even worst, they become leaders.
If the boss is a narcissist then you may have an inspiring personality at the helm with vision or an espoused vision and often have loyal followers. These leaders expect adulation and empathy and wont return the favor. As the article by Michael Maccoby exploring the pros and cons of narcissistic leaders in the HBR roundup by states, “ Narcissists have a vision –but that is not enough. People in mental hospitals have visions.”
My opinion on the matter is that life is short, get a different job with a mentally stable boss and given the choice don’t make them leaders of your team, company or country.
If you are interested in hiring an Executive Coach to help you navigate your career then please email Nicki@theglasshammer.com to discuss further
Op Ed: Lawyer turned entrepreneur: Why I decided to bring sports to the casual fan or novice
Career Advice, Office PoliticsI should have been utterly star-struck, but there was one big problem. I knew virtually nothing about sports. These were some of the most impressive athletes of our time, and yet the experience was somewhat lost on me. Like so many other occasions, I found myself making small talk throughout dinner, but falling uncomfortably silent whenever the conversation turned to sports.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in sports or consciously didn’t want to participate. Sports were just something that I had never grown up watching. By the time I got to law school at Michigan and football was such a huge part of the culture, I felt out of the loop and far behind many of my other classmates, who had grown up watching the game. I resigned myself to a lifetime of knowing nothing about sports.
But by a twist of fate, I was put on this baseball case at the law firm and I decided that I wanted to be proactive and do something about my sports obliviousness. I began following a couple teams and really getting to know a few players. Suddenly, with my additional knowledge, I felt empowered and it made watching the games fun and enjoyable. Sports were moving from something that had always left me feeling alienated to something that I genuinely enjoyed as a new pass-time.
Even though my case was a bit extreme, because sports-knowledge was nearly a requirement of my job, I found from speaking with friends and colleagues that this feeling of alienation is a common experience for many people who don’t follow sports, especially young professional women.
A 2015 Gallup Poll shows that there is a tangible gender gap in sports fandom with 76% of men earning over $75,000 describing themselves as sports fans, whereas only 56% of similarly high-income women would describe themselves as such. This difference, combined with the fact that only 14% of top executives are women, means that more often than not, ambitious young women are interfacing with men at the top of their companies. And not only that, they are competing with young male colleagues, who may be able to more easily form relationships with their bosses. While I do not think there is anything insidious going on, male associates may be able to more quickly able to form bonds with male bosses because of common interests, in part–sports. This scenario plays out in interactions with interviewers, clients, and colleagues as well.
I can speak from personal experience. Beyond working for MLB, I was frequently surrounded by colleagues chatting about sports. In my class of 20 litigation associates, only 3 were women. The gender breakdown amongst the partnership was similarly stark. At department lunches and firm events, it was often inevitable that the conversation would move beyond idle chitchat about the weather to the latest sports news.
This is not to suggest that women should have to feign interest in sports if they have none. But I think that there are many people, who like me, wanted to learn more but felt intimidated and didn’t know where to know where to start.
When I decided to try and learn more about sports, I found the experience frustrating because there were few resources for sports novices. There were plenty of media outlets for avid sports fans, but nothing that helped break things down and provide context for someone who was just getting started. I thought there was a gap in the marketplace for a product that could help someone develop more sports knowledge in a fun and accessible way.
This idea stuck with me, and just this year I decided to start Goalposte, a daily newsletter that summarizes the major stories in sports, while providing context and primers. In particular, Goalposte’s mission is to help level the playing field for young professional women, who are more likely to feel alienated in sports conversations with coworkers, bosses, interviewers, and clients. I hope that this simple daily newsletter will make it easier to cultivate a genuine interest in sports and that there will fewer women in the workplace who have to sit on the outside looking in when the conversation turns to sports.
About the Author:
Jane Wu Brower is the Founder and CEO of Goalposte, a daily newsletter that summarizes the major stories in sports in a fun and accessible way for casual sports fans and novices (www.goalposte.com). She was formerly a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group and a litigation associate at Proskauer Rose LLP.
Why working less can help you get ahead and get in control of your work
Career Advice, Work-LifeHowever, women do themselves a disservice by competing on sheer numbers of hours put in. On one level, it may be unhealthy – a recent study published in the Lancet shows working more than 55 hours a week is associated with a 1/3rd increased risk of stroke. On another level, working that long is actually counterproductive.
Working non-stop is a relic from the days when work needed far less creative and cognitive capacity. Working around the clock is based on a misguided attempt to maximize efficiency. If you’re dealing with a factory assembly line, you can increase output by eliminating any downtime – by making it more efficient. But human beings don’t work the same way. Eliminating downtime actually makes us less productive.
However, human beings can do something that machines can’t – we can have brief periods of fantastic productivity, when we set up the right mental and physiological conditions for it. In those brief times, just a couple of hours of excellent focus, we can get more of the truly important work done than if we had been wearing ourselves out by working around the clock.
Here are three of the science-based ways you can set up those conditions for brief periods of fantastic productivity, and in the process regain work-life balance:
Rather than simply aiming to put in as many hours as you can, you can get a leg up on the competition by setting yourself up for brief bursts of peak productivity.
I describe these and other science-based strategies to regain control of your work while increasing work-life balance in my new book, Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done.
Guest Contributed by New York NeuroLeadership Institute Research Director & NeuroCoach Josh Davis, Ph.D.
Do you really need an Executive Coach?
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!Image via Shutterstock
Are you getting the right amount of feedback? Do you have a career navigation plan? Do you know your levels of emotional intelligence? Do your values and how you want to live your life match up with your job demands? Are you stuck in the same old job? If you answer any of these questions with a no, then you should consider a coach.
There are many types of coaches and fit is everything so make sure you have an exploratory chat first. I would also say that there is a wide range of competency out there and many people just become coaches as they think they have “been there”, so perhaps review robustly what credentials and experience your potential coach has.
I used to be really cynical about Executive coaches until five years ago. I thought coaching was for “issue” employees or for resolving personality clashes between high performers and bosses. What I have come to realize ( and have become a coach myself with increased commitment to the highest levels of practice, learning and certification) is that coaching is life changing for many reasons and in my opinion the fastest way to empower women and all people on their professional advancement journey. Simply put, the right coach can do the following- help you understand yourself better ( personality) and what you want and then can help you understand all of this in the context of helping you to understand your behaviors. Does what you say you want, match what you are actually doing?
Organizational Psychology has taught me that those very behaviors that make or break any of us are interestingly caused in part by the environment we work in. The team and company “norms” and culture have a bigger role to play than perhaps any of us gives credit for. Understanding how to spot implicit norms with your coach and naming your triggers to some of your habits on a tough day at work is life enhancing.
Believe me, it is not just about the Myers Briggs or any other tool that tells you about yourself. You have to look at the big picture and the personalities in the game. Who gets to be in charge, who gets rewarded and what gets rewarded at your workplace? What gets tolerated? How do we do work around here?
So, if you are looking to go further and be happier, then consider an executive coach. It is hard to recognize you need one until you have one. I was the same way and I had an executive coach very early in my career and I still did not believe in the power of them – why? I had the wrong coach and the reasons that the company gave me the coach was conflict resolution based without involving the person who was in the conflict. Any good piece of psychology reading with tell you, or as your grandma would say, “ It takes two to tango” so no wonder coaching has a mixed reputation out there in the world.
For me, having a coach, helps me refine my thoughts and speak out loud about the realities of my strategies, and the truths about my hopes and dreams. For others, I provide an academic approach to sort out the next steps in their professional life and help with linear progression if that is what they want and if they don’t then we figure that out too. Good coaching keep you honest. Try it, and like everything in life, if you don’t find it useful then that is ok too!
If you are interested in hiring an executive coach then please email nicki@theglasshammer.com and she will be happy to discuss your needs further.
Mover and Shaker: Nupur Sharma, Manager, Accenture Consulting
Movers and ShakersSharma first learned about Accenture through a friend, who had joined the now more than 375,000 person company in the Midwest. She sold her on joining. “What hooked me with Accenture is its breadth of clients across industries and their work in the non-profit space. I was also attracted to the idea that there is no “typical” work day. You’re never bored at Accenture.
For Sharma, the diversity of work that Accenture affords its people differentiates a career there from “any other job I know.” According to Sharma, part of Accenture’s DNA is to “support its people in exploring their interests and opportunities and where they can excel within the company.”
Diversity of Career and Colleagues
Sharma began her career at Accenture nine years ago and she has been able to drastically change her job, the industry she focused on and the clients she served all whilst remaining at the same company. “Personally, I was drawn to Accenture because there is no typical work day here – it’s hard to be bored. The diversity of work you can do here differentiates itself from other careers. Accenture is very supportive in its people exploring different roles and pursuing personal interests and passions within the company,” she states.
She has worked with an incredibly diverse array of people at Accenture, such as Olympic athletes, authors, people who have run for office and those that have served our country and comments, “I’m constantly impressed with the caliber and diversity of people that our company attracts.” Plus, she notes, her sense of the company’s commitment to gender diversity has become stronger. The fact that Accenture was the first big consulting firm to publish its diversity demographics speaks volumes to its commitment to inclusion and diversity.”
Most recently Sharma worked with a major tech company to help them transform the way they do business by helping them improve their time to configure, price and quote.
“It’s really exciting. We are enabling companies to interact faster and more seamlessly with their customers and partners than ever before. More and more very established companies are willing to take leaps with us and innovate from their status quo.”
At Work, a Personal Passion
Sharma is passionate about the work she does at Accenture and is fortunate as the company always encourages her to pursue projects that excite her, in addition to the innovative projects she works on for clients. A great example of this is Sharma’s recent project to create the company’s new Augmented Reality App.
“Essentially, I was able to form a ‘mini-start up’ within Accenture by working to develop the company’s new Augmented Reality App. You point your phone at a specific item (a billboard, a t-shirt, a monument, etc.) that has been set up as a trigger and the photo/image comes alive with videos, interactive elements, links to websites, etc. I was able to get funding from my leadership team, find awesome developers, and build the app. I was really proud when the app was published in the Apple App Store and on Google play.”
She describes Augmented and Virtual Reality as among the top trends in consumer technology and that besides gaming and entertainment (such as Pokémon Go) she suggests that we will be seeing more AR in training, professional development, troubleshooting, geographical exploration, marketing and more. Sharma is proud of the work she has done at Accenture and comments, “I love that Accenture is not only experimenting with AR itself, but is on the leading edge by the work we’re doing for our clients to help them stay ahead. My goal is to one day be the company’s AR lead.”
Sharma is proud of her many professional achievements at Accenture but also of her involvement in Accenture’s non-profit work.
“One of the main reasons I joined Accenture nearly a decade ago was to eventually participate in Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), which delivers the power of Accenture’s global capabilities and experience to positively impact the lives of people in the developing world. Essentially, ADP applies the same expertise and capability that we employ at our clients, to non-profits and NGOs. It was amazing to work for the Catholic Relief Services NGO and implement an online financial system to replace their manual work. I’m thankful that Accenture supports non-profit work.”
Women in Technology
Sharma has always had an interest in technology and describes WIRED Magazine and TechCrunch as her bedtime reads. She is drawn to consumer technology as it has the biggest and most tangible impact on the lives of the average Jane/Joes and describes being able to influence that impact as being, “incredible.”
She believes it’s important to have more women in tech for the diversity of ideas that come from women being part of the conversation. “We bring different, fresh perspectives to the table and maybe even different ways of getting the job done. But I think it’s important to have diversity period, beyond gender. I see this at Accenture, working alongside people of many different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences, and how that diversity in people helps us deliver innovation.” says Sharma.
The Importance of Mentorship
Sponsorship and mentoring have played a very important role in Sharma’s career. She has benefitted from a ‘Career Counselor’, that all Accenture’s employees have access to, “I’ve had some great Career Counselors throughout my time at Accenture that have been my guiding light to help me advance and make the career choices that are best for me,” she states.
Sharma has also benefitted from organic mentors she has met along her journey and describes her mom as her biggest professional role model, “She emigrated from another country and maintained a work-life balance while raising three kids with my dad.”
Outside of Work
Outside of work Sharma loves being active, “I’ll do everything from yoga and dance to snowboarding and biking. I’m a certified yoga instructor and love teaching yoga to both coworkers and my students,” she says.
Save
Can Being Slightly Narcissist Help You Become a Leader?
Career Advice, LeadershipIt turns out that in general men are more narcissistic than women, according to a meta-analysis of 475,000 participants across three decades, which generated headlines running the gamut from The Huffington Post to Science Daily to The Daily Mail, and it did. As The Washington Post responded, “This surprises no one.”
But this isn’t about a battle of the sexes. With findings in hand, researcher Emily Grijalva, PhD, from the University of Buffalo School of Management and her co-authors crack open bigger questions about how our culture shapes people, shapes leadership, shapes outcomes. And how gender-disparate outcomes – playing out in your office and perhaps your career – reinforce the gender stereotypes creating them.
What makes you a narcissist?
The study that was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, examined over 350 journal articles, dissertations, manuscripts and technical manuals and analysed gender differences in three facets of narcissism across nearly half a million people and age groups. The researchers examined responses to statements designed to identify individual levels of each of these three aspects.
Grijalva notes that because narcissism is associated with outcomes, examining gender differences in narcissism may help to explain gender disparity when it comes to women in leadership positions in Corporate America.
A little bit of Narcissism can help you in your career
“I think it’s best characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, believing you are more important and special than other people and being less empathetic to others,” author Grijalva says of narcissism in a video interview.
While it would be widely agreed that narcissism is not an attractive aspect of the human condition – cross-cultural fables after all tend to emphasize the perils- it still nets some positive individual outcomes.In fact, healthy or adaptive narcissism – the right aspects in the “right degree” – relate to positive well-being, confidence, self-sufficiency and even parenting.
“Narcissism is associated with various interpersonal dysfunctions, including an inability to maintain healthy long-term relationships, unethical behavior and aggression,” said author Grijalva.
“At the same time, narcissism is shown to boost self-esteem, emotional stability and the tendency to emerge as a leader.” She also points out that it’s associated with making a strong first impression and being perceived as charismatic.
The study found that men, across generations and regardless of age, consistently scored measurably higher than women in the first two categories of narcissism.
The widest gender gap was in the maladaptive facet of entitlement and exploitation.
According to the researchers,on average men, but of course not every man, are more likely to feel entitled to special privileges and be willing to exploit others to advance self-interest.
This is interesting since research has demonstrated that one impact of having women present on corporate boards is higher ethical and social compliance.
The second largest gap was in leadership and authority, where the researchers assert men demonstrated greater assertiveness and desire for power (for its sake) than women.
But when it came to grandiosity and exhibitionism, or traits like vanity and self-absorption, there was no gap between genders.
Messaging from a young age and the impact on stereotypes
Pulling on previous research, the study speculates the narcissism gap may be reflective of both biological and social differences, ingrained and self-fulfilling gender stereotypes. This means narcissism could be encouraged and developed in males, or punished and suppressed in females, through gender conditioning.
The researchers suggest societal “agentic” definitions of masculinity overlap with narcissism and societal “communal” definitions of femininity exclude it.
“Individuals tend to observe and learn gender roles from a young age, and may face backlash for deviating from society’s expectations,” Grijalva says. “In particular, women often receive harsh criticism for being aggressive or authoritative, which creates pressure for women, more so than for men, to suppress displays of narcissistic behavior.”
The researchers suggest it’s more socially acceptable for men to display “agentic characteristics” such as dominance and assertiveness, which reinforces more narcissistic personality tendencies, and also means they emerge as leaders.
This gender-disparate outcome self-perpetuates: men keep emerging as leaders, leadership traits continue to be male-associated, and more women continue to suppress their “agentic” sides to conform to gender expectations and avoid cultural backlash.
Society keeps looking at its face in the mirror, and seeing the same reflection.
Interestingly, the study also looked at college students from 1990-2013 and found no evidence that neither men nor women had become more or less narcissistic with time, letting the Millennial generation off the hook in this particular study- despite the rise in “selfies”.
How Speaking Out Can Help Release Pressure
Career AdviceAs Thomas Carlyle once said, “No pressure, no diamonds.”
Indeed, pressure plays a vital role in life. It serves as an obstacle, a challenge that forces each one of us to improve, develop, and grow.
However, when you let pressure pile up unchecked and unanswered, it will cease being a challenge and start being a real problem that will inevitably take its toll on your body and mind.
Work is one of the many pressure-riddled aspects in a woman’s life. Uncooperative colleagues, office politics, supplier mixups, and clients that are difficult to deal with are just some of the common problems they usually face at work.
When you let these pressure build up at work, it will lead to performance issues and productivity slumps that will significantly hurt your chances at going up the corporate ladder or even worse, ruin your career.
It’s Time To Take Charge
Stop letting work pressure push you around. Most of the time, the cause of work pressure can be effectively handled at the onset by speaking out. Read on and find out six benefits of speaking out that can help release pressure at work and even discover ways to fast track your career:
Clear Communication is Essential at Work
From fostering great relationship with family and friends to dealing with coworkers and clients, clear communication is essential. It removes ambiguity and makes sure everyone is on the same page.
Speaking out imposes clear communication. It allows everyone to learn of your intent, issues, and suggestions clearly, which can lead to better resolutions or a great outcome. This is critical especially at work since a smooth-flowing operation heavily relies on details.
To avoid pressure due to work-related mistakes and misunderstandings, don’t deprive yourself of the opportunity to speak up.
Better Working Relationships
Sometimes, speaking out may mean you’re speaking for somebody else. Not everyone has the heart to speak out in fear of indirect backlash or being deemed brash and forceful by the people at the office. By speaking out, you’re effectively fostering a better work relationship with your colleagues. After all, friends make work a lot easier.
Some of the benefits of speaking out is how it injects a dose of confidence in your peers who are unable or unwilling to speak out for themselves. By being vocal about your thoughts, you’re subtly encouraging your work mates to speak out for themselves. The people at the office will eventually thank you, and love you, for it.
Great friendship and working relationship will help in reducing pressure in a significant way.
Respecting Yourself
Speaking out means you’re setting clear boundaries on what’s best for you, your career, and your health. Being honest is a great way to reassure yourself of the self-respect you deserve.
Remember, you can only handle so much. By speaking out and being honest about it, you’re boosting your self image, helping your career grow, and keeping your health from sliding down. Even better, speaking out makes people respect you. It’s one of the great benefits of communication at work. A person who knows his abilities, limitations and knows how to assert himself is a person that will be admired and respected by everybody.
Speaking out saves you from a self-imposed pressure brought by being silent.
Silence May Means ‘Yes’
Failing to speak up may lead to manipulative bosses and opportunistic colleagues who are assuming that you’re agreeing to what could be unreasonable demands and demeaning proposals.
By keeping your mouth shut, you’re allowing these people to have their way without any semblance of resistance, which may lead to them repeating their behavior over and over until your body can’t keep up anymore and your career suffers.
Speaking up puts a stop on their untoward work behavior and release pressure at work.
Show Passion and Concern
Speaking shows your passion and concern towards work. Speaking out shows that you care enough to voice out your thoughts on the matter at hand.
People who appreciate passion isn’t confined inside the four corners of the office, passion gets the attention of senior executives.
Passion speaks volumes, it shows in your actions and it resonates among colleagues. It motivates them.
Speaking up brings out this dormant passion out.
A big bonus: communicating clearly for faster promotion is definitely a great idea. Getting promoted will essentially handle most of your finance-related pressure as well. A win-win for you and your workplace.
Keep Everyone Informed
There are a lot of unnoticed work issues that requires a person empathic enough to speak out and alert everybody of the problem before it goes out of hand.
This maybe a faulty machine, an operations loophole, or ill-will among colleagues. By refusing to speak out, you’re effectively letting this problem continue until it becomes a costly and difficult situation to handle. Turning a blind eye will only incur grudge from people and might treat you like you’re the one who instigated the problem in the first place.
This kind of pressure is avoidable and something you don’t deserve.
Put an End to Work-related Pressure Once and For All
Most of the problems at work can be attributed to poor communication. By speaking out, you’re reducing pressure at work that can gnaw and haunt your career if you left it unaddressed. One of the benefits of communication at work is that it eases up the work process and keeps everyone on good terms at the same time. Keeping this up means you’re keeping the pressure down.
Considering that half of our lives will be spent at work and with workmates, it’s necessary that you deal with work-related problems and find ways to release pressure at work as soon as you can.
Speak out.
Let your voice be heard.
Let your intentions be known.
That’s how you achieve clear and effective communication.
That’s how you can release pressure.
Guest contributed by Jona Jones
Leadership: How to be authentic at work and why sincerity can hinder that
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!The trouble with “authenticity” in the workplace is that there are many definitions of what being authentic is and in reality we are often defined by the role we play. There are two types of roles and the first and most tangible is the task role we have at work, literally the duties we have to deploy to get paid. The second type of role is deeper and more or less mandated formally. It is the psychological role we are given or that we take up willingly due to gender stereotypes. Look around your office, who buys the birthday cards? (the person who plays the office “mom” or “wife” usually is a woman and often works in HR). Who gets given the important tasks etc? I have written many times about the fact that by default and in aggregate men are given the mantle of being viewed leader-like (these are men as a concept not actual individual men that we know,I may add). If there are 8 major traits to being a leader such as competence and productivity, then why do we assume that straight white men just automatically have them?
Since this post is part two of me telling you to read Herminia Ibarra’s book “ Act Like A Leader, Think Like a Leader”, let us look at how you can show up authentically but strike the right balance of being authoritative when needed with the right amount of gravitas whilst still being seen as human.
So, How do you show up as when you are supposedly just being you? Stanford psychologist, Hazel Markus showed that people’s identities are based just as much on future possibilities as they are on formative past and present states. Why does sincerity matter? And when is too much sincerity a bad thing? When you can not possibly do everything you say you will and still be productive or when you have to disclose every detail of the business plan leaving no room for executive flexibility and reducing our credibility in the process.
I have taught courses on being authentic as it pertains to being in alignment with your values and purpose. This too is something that Herminia Ibarra comments is open to then providing a free range of behaviors that allows for flexibility and adaptability. This is optimal as it allows us to have emotional intelligence (EQ), to be chameleon like when we need to but without losing ourselves.
Sounds good, right? Without this ‘reading the room’ piece all of us are totally at the mercy of our personalities which are fairly fixed and intrinsic. I am a believer in Lewin’s theory- that our behaviors are a product of the perfect storm of our personality and our environment that we operated in. So, on those bad ‘back against the wall’ days at work, we have to be able to modulate our reactions and the most eccentric, confrontational and bold amongst us will suffer in most teams far more than the passive aggressive folks as that sadly is totally normal in many corporate cultures today.
When I was at Columbia university studying the topic of leadership, the faculty repeated time and time again that it is really important if you are a leader to have followers and without them you are just a person who has your name on the corner office. Even if you are not yet at the corner office the same rings true. So, “Fake it til you make it” as the popular saying goes, but “make sure you make it” is the part I feel needs to be added.
You can do it!!
If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career then please contact nicki@theglasshammer.com who will be happy to discuss things further