Tag Archive for: advice

Spotlight on Asia

During the month of August, The Glass Hammer will be focusing on Asia, featuring profiles of senior level women who are showing up to challenge the gender gap in Asia with their own journeys to leadership.

Take a look at the following articles that take a wider look at the gender dynamics of business in Asia.

Via Shutterstock

Spotlight on Asia: Gender Diversity is Both Catching Up and Leading

When it comes to women representation in business leadership, Asia is at once behind and ahead. For all the societal factors holding women back, marketplace and cultural dynamics are also pulling women into leadership and the C-Suite.

Update: Spotlight on Asia – China and Singapore: Baby Steps Towards Improving Gender Diversity

The Opportunity is Great but the Journey may be Long
McKinsey’s June 2013 report, Women Matter: An Asia Perspective, noted, “women hold very few of the top jobs in Asia. On average, they hold 6% of the seats on corporate boards and 8% of those on executive committees. Moreover, although elements of a gender diversity program are in place in some Asian companies, the issue is not yet high on the strategic agenda of most.”

Update: Spotlight on Asia 2: Japan Continues to Lag in Diversity Rankings

For all of its years as a global economic power, cultural issues and possibly a protracted economic downturn have limited gender diversity in the Japanese workplace. Japan consistently falls near the bottom of the rankings for gender diversity in the workplace. Women hold 2% of board positions (GMI) and 9% of senior management roles (Grant Thorton) according to recent studies.

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What Happens When it Is Not Your Skill Level Holding You Back in Your Career?

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational PyschologistNicki Gilmour

Let’s be honest. What happens when you are a highly qualified professional but people just find you hard to work with or work for? This can be a real career staller and can create headaches of having to replace staff who leave you as a manager.

Your behaviors define you. How you show up is what people notice much more than your impressive list of qualifications or even your true competence level. There are many forms of behavior that can derail you, as no matter how nice you are it doesn’t matter if you are confusing people with any of the following traits- control freak, a perfectionist or an unclear communicator.

I pick these three as development points since they assume that you mean well and your intent is good, however your impact on the other person leaves them wondering just how to meet your standards and expectations. They may have tried several ways and are at a loss for words.

How do you find out if you are doing this to your team or direct reports? Well, a feedback tool such as a 360 rater survey is always a good way to see how people perceive you against how you see yourself. As a coach, we use these tools, as do many companies to help you get to stuff that a direct question might not work for. But, if you do have good relationships with peers, it cannot hurt to buy them a coffee and ask what they think your strengths and weaknesses are. If this feels too confrontational or you are not ready to hear it in this format, there are alternative ways to ask for feedback. Here are three ideas

1. Do an “after action review” on a project, unpacking what went well and what could have been done differently. This way the topic is the project but with a little deep questioning around how ideally you could have taken up your formal role, you can harvest gems.

2. Ask your colleague what he or she likes about your work style and what they feel they would like to see more of? Be brave and follow up with a last question along the lines of “what would you like to see less of?”

3. Think about how you show up and list any patterns in jobs or projects of how you think you acted or interacted and then talk it over with a coach to see what felt right and what felt a little odd to you. You will know as you build you EQ and SQ muscles around the accuracy of how people perceive you. However, on this note, we all have our baggage which creates lenses and views which can then distort how we do analyze our interactions. This stuff is crucial to unpack with someone who understands developmental coaching psychology as all executive coaches are not created equal on this front and 100% of the time.

When in doubt, put yourself in other people’s shoes and think about how it would feel to be on the receiving end of certain behaviors. We all have different pet peeves and likes and dislikes but this is still a good place to start!

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Breaking the Planning Fallacy: The How and Why of Being on Time

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Guest contributed by Katie McBeth

time

Image via Shutterstock

There are two types of people in this world:

“Punctuality is the politeness of kings.” – King Louis XVIII of France

“Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.” – Author Evelyn Waugh

Yet, no matter where your personal opinion may lie on the spectrum, the business world has fully embraced the former of the two; be on time, no exceptions. Our world is dependent on schedules and time. Punctuality is a must, even if it’s personally impossible to achieve.

And there are genuinely good reasons why our culture has fully embraced punctuality. For one, showing up late is often seen as a sign of lack of dependability. It also wastes the time of those we are planning to meet up with. By being punctual we are also being respectful. Of course, much of this is cultural, and there are many legitimate reasons why people may often be late.

However, in a more business sense, being on time can be a real chore. Still, there are ways to trick yourself into staying on schedule. Timeliness is a necessity in relationships or business, and to really succeed it’s vital to get to grips with the importance of being on time.

If you struggle with punctuality, here’s how to fix it.

The Planning Fallacy  

Punctuality has been closely tied to human behavior, and psychologists have been studying time habits in humans for quite some time. In the late 1970’s, one psychologist was able to experience it first hand, and even gave it a name: the planning fallacy.

If you are someone that is perpetually late – no matter how hard you try to not be tardy – it could be that you are suffering from this common mental state of mind. As psychologists with the University of Southern California describe, our personal concept of time is biased, and can often skew our understanding of how long a task will take to complete. In reality, it can be easy to overcome, once we master the bias.

Researchers with USC state: “Individuals consistently assume their own tasks will get done sooner and be easier than they actually do or are. This is an optimism bias. On the other hand, a third-party observer assessing how long a task will take for another person will consistently provide a “low-ball” figure representing a pessimism bias – believing the task will take longer.”

Besides appearing disrespectful, the planning fallacy can also hurt financially. For large companies, it can cost hundreds of additional hours in labor as well as potentially far overshoot any budgets.

One giant example of this is the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. It took an extra ten years to complete the project, and had an estimated cost of about eight million dollars. The final cost? Over 102 million dollars.

Overcoming the Planning Fallacy  

Time management was created as the core solution to combating the planning fallacy. Whether traveling from point A to point B, or simply getting up in the morning, time management plays a role in all of it. Delegate your time wisely, and you’ll be able to work your way out of the fallacy.

For example, if you’re perpetually procrastinating on projects or homework, create an agenda and set exact start times for your projects. Find a way to minimize outside distractions, and simply buckle down. The sooner you start, the sooner you finish.

However, it’s also important to consider the amount of work needed to complete the task. If you’re researching a topic, then you might need a few more hours of time than if you’re, say, writing an article on the benefits of dog walking.

This is where time delegation can really help. View the task pessimistically, and set up exact times dedicated to researching, compiling notes, and writing your project. Don’t wait for your superior to tell you what to do and when to do it. Instead, show your ability as a self-starter and work to build up your personal confidence and time management skills.

Another important part to breaking the fallacy is to avoid multitasking. Although many feel like they function better when multitasking, the truth is it can end up wasting more time simply by switching mindsets between projects. Zeroing in on the project at hand can help you complete a task on time.

If you’re a perpetually late person – as in physically always late to work or meet ups with friends – then you need to take a different approach. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked into tasks when you know you need to be somewhere else, and instead try to get into a routine. Especially for non-morning people: set yourself up for success by creating and cultivating a strong morning routine. You will rarely be late to work if you’re already alert and awake within an hour or so of you needing to leave.

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Breaking the planning fallacy can be difficult. It will take time to teach yourself how to manage time. However, once you’ve mastered it, you’ll have a whole new confidence in your ability to get work done, and you’ll be able to easily impress those that are relying on you.

Punctuality may be mandatory in our society, but it certainly has its benefits. Don’t let time and tardiness get the better of you.

Katie McBeth is a researcher and writer out of Boise, ID, with experience in marketing for small businesses and management. Her favorite subject of study is millennials, and she has been featured on Fortune Magazine, Glassdoor, and the Quiet Revolution. You can follow her writing adventures on Instagram or Twitter: @ktmcbeth.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Carving Out Your Time – Simplifying for Success

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Guest contributed by Daria Rippingale, CEO, BillPro

simplifying

Image via Shutterstock

Recently I was having a drink with a friend of mine and she was telling me about her newest obsession, the New York Times best seller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. In it she describes a method of decluttering your home that, according to Kondo, refocuses your mind and your life on the things that “spark joy” for you. Essentially, all of the items in your home should bring you some level of joy, while not adding to your stress, so that you can focus on the most important elements of your life.

The end goal is having a home that is clutter free and creates a relaxing environment. Each possession that takes up space should be meaningful – every piece of clothing, every book, every trinket is chosen with purpose and conviction. Anything that gets in the way of the end goal, anything that isn’t regularly used or doesn’t bring happiness, gets tossed.

I left that conversation thinking about clearing out the clutter in our personal lives and how that applies to our work lives, too. We hear the phrase “Do more with less” all the time, but I cringe at the idea of what that traditionally means – longer hours, the same amount of work done by fewer people and usually a drop in quality as a result.

I know from my own experience that with a little practice and some creative ideas, you can streamline your days, making every minute of your work-life meaningful and therefore less stressful and more effective. De-cluttering your work and even your company will allow you to live the true spirit of “doing more with less”.

Below are a few of my essential strategies:

Hone in on your objectives
Firstly, be clear about your goals and objectives, both for you and for your company. Having the destination in mind will make the trip a lot quicker. To continue the travel analogy, your goals are like your True North on a compass. True North is the objective to which all your projects should lead.

Take time to muse over what those goals and objectives might be. Try setting aside time, once a week, to get away from the rush of the office and just think. It probably sounds counter-intuitive to saving time, but the results can be astonishing. Take a walk, sit with a notepad in a quiet room, or do anything where you won’t have too many distractions, allowing you to fully focus on your thoughts. Stepping back from the daily grind, even for 15 minutes, lets you focus on what is really important.

Once you’re clear on where you’re going, it becomes easier to look at your current and upcoming projects and use your compass to guide you towards True North. Focus on the projects that will move you towards your destination. The others are just “busy work” and will only act as barriers to achieving the important things that do “spark joy”. Merely being busy isn’t the same as being productive. Activity doesn’t necessarily equal results.

Ensure that your team is clear on what their objectives are too. Communicate with them as to how their individual projects will lead to the desired destination. Empower them to identify “busy work” and to ask questions about processes and projects that don’t seem to fit with what the organization is trying to achieve.

Simplify Your Work Day

Clearing the decks of focus-stealing “busy work” will recover lost time at the macro level. Simplifying your day-to-day work stream will recover that time at the micro level. Start by eliminating the two biggest hindrances to your productivity – emergencies (that rarely are) and interruptions.

Start each day by looking at your to-do list and calendar, not your email. This sets your mind in motion on what needs to be done instead of what has already happened. Take a few minutes to order your task list for the day. Be sure to tag tasks that are high value and focus towards True North, not just urgent. Completing the high value tasks will return greater rewards on the time you invest in them.

The next time thief to tackle is interruptions, and the biggest culprit here is email. Email is like a spoiled child who wants your attention, and they want it now.

Start minimizing the impact email has on your day by turning off email alerts. If you’re like me, you know there is a never ending stream of messages, so there really is no need to be constantly reminded. Allow yourself 15-20 minutes for checking in and responding to your emails in between larger tasks, making it a welcome distraction rather than an annoyance.

When you’re ready to corral your email even more, consider the advice of Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour Work Week. He suggests only checking your email twice a day and using an auto responder stating the times you intend to review messages. For emergencies, they can always call.

Lastly, take 30 minutes before you finish up to reflect on the day. Examine what you accomplished, and what the value of those tasks were. Check your calendar for upcoming meetings and deadlines. This keeps you in that proactive state of mind instead of reactive, and prevents you from feeling anxious about the next day’s tasks.

If you want to do more with the time available to you, start by taking the time to focus on your True North – what’s important to your own goals and to the company. Use this as a compass to guide everything you do. Remove those projects that are simply “busy work” and concentrate on the tasks that move you forward. I believe that focusing on objectives and on simplifying everything has truly been integral to my success in leading the BillPro team on the journey of rapid growth. Certainly, without a sharp focus on the destination, we would not be in this position today.

BillPro CEO Daria Rippingale is considered a global authority on merchant processing. As an industry leader in e-commerce innovation, her fresh thinking regarding international payments and risk reduction has brought thousands of previously unserved merchants into the global marketplace. Follow on Twitter @BillProPayments

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Best of Career Tips

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Our resident Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist Nicki Gilmour writes a regular inspiring and useful career tip column for theglasshammer that helps women navigate through their career.Nicki Gilmour

If you are interested in hiring an Executive Coach you may contact Nicki directly on Nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation chat about our services.

Take a look at the some of the previous articles Nicki has written:

 

Leadership: How to be authentic at work and why sincerity can hinder that

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.

Why wanting more at work can be a good and bad thing

I am very guilty of living in the future and this can lead to not being 100% engaged in the present.

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Are You Dying to Get to the Top?

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Guest contributed by Laleh Hancock

top

Image via Shutterstock

Yes, the pun is intended! It’s well documented that executives who ignore the warning signs from their body put themselves at risk of serious illness and injury, if not death.
I am not about to give you a list of do’s and don’ts. You’re smart. You’re talented. You’ve read it all and you know what’s required. You’re a leader and an executive, and yet you are reading this for some reason.
 
Maybe you have started to notice some of those warning signs, such as being tired all the time? Maybe you’re being distracted by your busyness and you just need some assistance with implementation? Maybe, even though you have it all – the job and the life that everyone wants – you are not as happy as you thought you would be, and you feel like there has to be more to life?
 
You can have, be, and do it all. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.
 
Best of all, you don’t have to give anything up. In fact, you need to include more! You need to include YOU and your body!
 
It is not about ‘balance.’ It’s about mindfulness; remaining aware of everything, no matter what is going on, and taking effective action, which includes making YOU and your wellness a priority.
 
It’s easy to ignore all those whispers from the body when you are busy – “Sure, I need to go to the bathroom, but I’ve only got one hour to get this done. I can wait.” But can you really afford to? The more whispers you ignore, the more likely your ‘glass hammer’ is going to turn into a ‘sledge hammer’ to the back of the head! It starts with whispers, but if you don’t pay attention, it ends up shouting at you with debilitating illnesses or injuries that force you to take a break.
 
Three things can turn it around for you:
 
1. Breathe – Focusing on your breath reconnects you with your body. Try taking a breath up from under your feet, to the top of your head, then release it back down to your feet; reconnecting you to the contributing energies of the Earth. This has a calming effect, adds oxygen to your body, allows you to refocus your attention and energies on the thoughts and actions that will create your desired outcome with greater ease.
 
2. Ask questions. The point of a question is to gain additional information and awareness, not rely on answers we’ve already concluded. Questions are expansive, and they put what you desire out into the ether, so the universe can contribute back to you and your body. 
 
Start with, “What would it take?” questions. Ask them often, and expand your sense of the possibilities available to you that you may have not considered.
 
For example: You’re on a tight deadline, but your body wants to move. Ask, “What would it take to move my body and meet the deadline?” Really wonder about it. Then continue with your activities and see what ideas shows up. Asking the question without a conclusion in mind makes you more receptive to possibilities that you may not have considered before. Ideas might come to you that enable you to do both, such as taking your phone to record ideas while you walk around the block. You can have a planning and creativity session with yourself on more effective solutions, and still give your body the contribution it was asking for.
 
3. Expand Your Zone of Awareness. It’s so easy to become myopic when you are busy, yet this is so contractive and counter-productive to the creativity required for success.
 
Throughout the day, stop and ask, “Where is my focus?” and expand it. All you have to do is ask, and it will automatically expand.
 
Also ask, “Is anything required of me?” and follow any ideas you might have. You may find a particular project pulling on your attention, or you might hear a whisper from your body.
 
The more you include your body in your goals, the more your body will have your back. It’s a two-way street!
Like most of us with ambitious goals, Laleh Alemzadeh-Hancock tried to do it all. Climb the corporate ladder, be a great spouse, and the perfect mother. She would self-sacrifice, eat at her desk, stay late, and still manage the household. Both her family and her work were priorities. The only one who wasn’t was herself. Now, Laleh is a management consultant, Joy of Business facilitator and the CEO of Belapemo and Global Wellness For All. With nearly 30 years of experience in operational excellence, change management, and organizational wellness, Laleh has inspired and empowered hundreds of thousands of individuals, including Fortune 500 executives, to seek greater success, happiness and wellness.
 
 
Laleh Alemzadeh-Hancock is a management consultant, Joy of Business facilitator, and founder and CEO of Belapemo and Global Wellness for All. A passionate change-agent, Laleh has empowered thousands of individuals including Fortune 500 executives, government agencies, not-for–profit organizations, athletes and veterans to achieve optimal growth.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com
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Values – As a Leader Are You Living Them?

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Nicki Gilmour

This past year all over the world, the geo-political landscape has been dramatic.

We have watched countries swing wildly, some with populism and conspiracy, creating new scenarios that would have been possibly unimaginable just 12 months ago, while other nations are choosing to elect leaders who refuse to regress on social and environmental issues.

What both of these versions have in common is that they demonstrate values-led leadership as we are seeing many leaders determined to take paths that line up into two narratives- go back to something they think we had before or go forward to what they think will be a new future.

Although I have my opinions and emotions like the next person, I am not expressing them here and not judging here, so, before I get emails telling me not to be political (code for what the Dixie Chicks experienced as ‘Shut up and sing”) I want to explain why we can look at this and understand our career paths and leadership style.

One of the things we look at in coaching is what are your values, how do you live them against your espoused goals in real life? Do your paradigms serve you? Do they truly meet your actual needs of where you want to go?

Can you take other people’s opinions and face a little conflict and work through it to filter what values they are espousing beyond the emotion of difference? And then how that truly sits against your values? Full circle then is, how do your actions sit against your values and are they really your values? Where did they come from? Why do they matter at this moment? What other values mean more to you in reality?

This isn’t just about looking at outdated negative views that a person might hold but also about examining the positive self perceptions that we do not actually live up to. If we say we want to lead, how is our audio matching our visual? If we say we support women, how many do we promote, hire or defer to as an expert?

If we say you are pro-equality then what actions do we take from the voting booth to the banker we use?

Closing the cognitive dissonance gap is not always the aim but understanding and recognizing what it all means to us is pretty key to moving forward in life and work.

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Refusing to Provide Salary History Information During Job Interviews

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By Ken Levine, Esq., Bailey Duquette P.C., New York, New York

 

job interview

 
 Potential employers routinely ask for an applicant’s current salary before making an offer.  The practice arguably perpetuates gender pay disparity, since an unfairly low salary at one company will then have an “anchoring effect” and lead to a lower salary at the next job, continuing the systemic bias.  Many women who also take time off from work to care for children re-enter the workforce at a lower salary, and similarly run the risk of being stuck at a lower salary rung at subsequent jobs.
 
Employers are already prohibited by federal and state laws from compensating men and women at different rates for the same work, and women can sue if they experience wage disparity in violation of those laws.  But reliance on salary history may still perpetuate the gender disparity, even if not done for overtly sexist reasons.   
 
In an effort to ensure pay equity for women, Massachusetts, Philadelphia and New York City have all recently passed laws to restrict salary history questions, and other states, including Illinois, New Jersey, Maine, California, and Vermont, are considering similar measures. The New York City law prohibits employers or their agents from inquiring about the salary history of an applicant, whether male or female, and restricts an employer’s ability to rely upon salary history in determining compensation during the hiring process, even if the employer finds the information through lawful publicly-available sources.  The New York City law allows an employer to discuss with an applicant his or her expected salary, salary range and benefits.  A prospective employer is also allowed to consider salary history if the applicant “voluntarily and without prompting” discloses the information.  The law does not apply to internal promotions. 
 
No state or city laws are currently in effect. Philadelphia‘s ordinance was scheduled to take effect on May 23, 2017, but a federal court stayed its effectiveness pending a legal challenge on first amendment grounds. The New York City legislation will take effect on October 31, 2017, and the Massachusetts law, passed last summer, will take effect on July 1, 2018, unless either of them faces similar legal challenges.  Several government agencies also prohibit inquiry into salary history for the same reasons.
 
The new laws can serve to embolden women to withhold their current salary information during contract negotiations.   Women (and men) can credibly argue that not relying on salary history requires employers to make clear, market-based decisions about pay.  Some head hunters in fact actively advise all clients not to reveal current salary for this very reason, even when pressured to do so.  The issue is especially relevant for women who have taken time off from work to care for children.  Citing to these new laws and policies, even if not currently legally binding on prospective employers, can serve as sound justification for withholding salary history information during employment negotiations. 
 
 
Ken Levine is a commercial litigator and general corporate adviser.

 

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Don’t Let Stereotype Threat Hold You Back

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 Guest contributed by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris

stereotype

Image via Shutterstock

The belief that certain activities are “appropriate” for women and certain careers are not is the result of stereotype threat, pure and simple. If a woman believes women are good at psychology but not computer science, she is more likely to major in psychology than computer science. If she believes women are good at personal relationships but not finance, she is more likely to take a job in human resources than the treasury department. And if she believes women are not good at negotiating but are good at administrative organization, she is more unlikely to volunteer for a major merger or acquisition and more likely to offer to organize a new filing system.

We recognize that the entire subject of gender-appropriate activities is a highly sensitive one. Pointing out the gender segregation in college majors—85 percent of health service majors are women but only 19 percent of engineering majors are—and occupations—80 percent of social workers are women but only 15 percent of computer programmers are—can quickly be interpreted as a form of “blaming the victim.” Pointing out gender segregation in careers can be taken as an attempt to hold women responsible for having lower status and lower-paying jobs than do men.

We want to make clear that we don’t think some college majors are better than others, that some occupations are better than others, or that some career roles are better than others. There are multiple factors affecting women’s decisions with respect to all of these areas, and we have no interest in making judgments about anyone’s actual choices. What we do have an interest in, however, is making you aware of the segregation by gender that pervades America’s college majors, occupations, and career responsibilities. We believe that if you are sensitive to this segregation, you will be less likely to place limitations and restraints on your own work-related attitudes, choices, and behavior simply because you are a woman. We don’t want women to be more like men, but we do want women to believe and behave as though they can do anything in their careers that men can do—and do it just as well, if not better.

Forty percent of college-educated women and men would need to change their occupations to achieve gender parity across all United States occupations. This occupational gender segregation is most often attributed to “demand-side” influences, that is, employers’ decisions about who they will hire and who they will make feel welcome. There is some evidence that “supply-side” factors also play a role. This means that women’s and men’s personal decisions about where (and at what) they want to work contribute to this segregation. Researchers from McGill University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania looked at the jobs comparably qualified woman and men applied for after having attended an elite, one-year international MBA program.

Their study focused on three factors influencing a person’s choice of a job: how the applicant values the specific rewards offered by the job, whether the applicant identifies with the job, and whether the applicant expects an application for that job will result in a job offer. The study examined how each of these factors affected women’s and men’s applications to work in the fields of finance, consulting, and general management.

The researchers found no differences in the monetary and other values women and men assigned to these jobs. Nevertheless, women were far less likely to apply for jobs in finance and consulting and far more likely to apply for general management positions than were men. The researchers found this gender disparity in applications was due almost entirely to women not “identifying” with finance jobs because of the strong masculine stereotypes associated with them or with consulting jobs because of anticipated difficulties with “work–life balance.” The researchers concluded that the low number of women in the fields of finance and consulting is largely the result of women’s “gender role socialization,” that is, the stereotypes they held about themselves and particular careers. They also concluded, however, that when a woman can overcome exceptionally high barriers to female participation early in her career, this may actually reduce her “gendered behavior” in subsequent stages of her career.

Gendered behavior is behavior that is shaped or caused by internalized gender stereotypes. Take one well-documented phenomenon: men typically apply for jobs when they meet 60 percent of the job criteria, but women typically don’t apply until they feel they meet 100 percent of the criteria. This is gendered behavior, pure and simple, and it is due in all likelihood to stereotype threat: women’s belief that they are just not as good at particular tasks as men and, therefore, their fear that if they are not fully qualified for the jobs for which they are applying, they are likely to fail. This same fear too frequently causes some women to choose assignments and positions that involve less risk, lower visibility, fewer challenges, less responsibility and less external pressure than those chosen by their male colleagues. If you are in a traditionally male work environment, there are lots of people and situations at work that will hold you back simply because you are a woman. You are as talented, prepared, and capable as the men, so be your own best fan and avoid thinking negatively about yourself or what you are capable of.

This article is adapted with permission from Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris, Copyright © 2016 by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris. Published by Bibliomotion, Inc.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Maybe Next Year: The Promotion or Bonus Promise That Was Not Kept

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By Nicki Gilmour

What do you do when you are told that you did great work this year but you are not getting the promotion or the bonus you were set up by these managers or HR people to expect? Nicki Gilmour

Many people come to me with this issue and frankly are not very happy about it. Depending on the exact circumstances, this could be a deal breaker for some professionals who start looking around for a different opportunity in a new firm. For others, it is time of working with their boss to plan to replay what the goals were and to look at instances which met, exceeded or came close to the expectation. Why do this? Why delve into the past? Well, sometimes it can be useful to  ensure that the criteria to progress is made explicit for this year. This process is helpful to set up a system, so that during the year you can have formal or informal check-ins to show that you are meeting the milestones and that your success is hard to refute. Moreover, maybe it is about making busy people notice.

How can you have this conversation without it being inappropriate, weird or reflect badly on you?

Firstly, know your boss. How will he or she react to an after action review? Will they find it constructive if couched as such?

Secondly, know the cultural norms of how things are done there. Stay safe, play within norms (unless you have a huge appetite for risk in which case do what you need to do but be able to live with the consequences).

Lastly, understand the importance or including or excluding HR as each firm is different on the use of human resources and talent processes. I say this with respect, because if you have a strategic and involved HR team who really get the talent retention piece and can see you are trying to develop yourself, then that can help you immensely as their systems might make for a less subjective process. Conversely, if they are all police and there is no strategic process then perhaps finding a different route to your manager as it pertains to how you reach the next level is ok too.

Is it as easy as asking your manager the following? In some cases, yes.

A direct question like “What do I explicitly need to do to get the x title and be paid y with z in bonus starting January 2018?” is suitable for some firms and not for others as is, “If I fulfill on tasks as discussed and fulfill on what we agree realistic success to be, can you give me a reassurance that we are going to be both happy and rewarded this time next year?”

This gives your manager a chance to think about what success looks like for you and them at the very least and in more subtle environments, just asking “what does success look like?” might be a good way to build that relationship and clarify some benchmarks.

Getting any sort of criteria in writing can be useful and on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis as appropriate, send an email to your boss and other stakeholders with an update on how the activity is furthering or completing the stated goal.

And, if it is a moving target then ask your boss to break it down based on today’s live time view and suggest a formal time every month or quarter to talk about how goals are evolving based on the external environment or whatever stimuli is making them constantly move. Just make sure this is not an easy out for your manager to stay vague on purpose.

Because, you do not want to be having the same conversation this time next year now, do you?

(If you are interested in hiring an Executive Coach please contact Nicki@theglasshammer.com to discuss further)

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