Tag Archive for: Nicki Gilmour

What Would Oprah Say?

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 By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational PsychologistNicki Gilmour

Advice giving is a tricky business and when I thought up the title of this week’s column, I actually googled the sentence “What would Oprah say?” to find out she is the modern day Plato. No one can argue with her words of wisdom as she is a mentor to us all in that respect and a glass breaker in so many ways. I watched her as a girl from my TV screen in Northern Ireland not knowing that my own destiny would bring me to the USA to help people be their best selves.

My point? As useful as anyone’s advice is in this life, what matters is how you use it and integrate it. To do this, it’s key to know yourself and the constructs that you have built over time. What beliefs do you hold? How does that affect how you to take on new beliefs? Do those new ones confirm old biases or transform you? How can you check for validity in a meta-universal way so you can escape subjectivity of just adding to the pile of assumptions that may or may not be true? What beliefs are so implicit that they are hidden to you, yet create competing agendas to your espoused goals?

Oprah can tell you to go higher, Sheryl can tell you to lean in and all of that has truth in it. It’s good advice, but its just advice. Only you can dig deep into your own paradigms and figure out what you believe in and why you do what you do.

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How to Be the Best Ally You Can be to an LGBT Co-worker or Colleague

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational PyschologistNicki Gilmour

You are probably fairly evolved when it comes to treating others like you would like to be treated. You stick to this golden rule and that is a good basic strategy as human civility and trust come from simple questions such as ‘Hey, how was your weekend?’

Letting the person respond to ‘the weekend’ question in an authentic way without raising an eyebrow or judging them according to your norms and yardstick is also a good start. Often a simple reply of ‘I went to the cinema with my girlfriend/wife/partner’ becomes an anxiety ridden moment for the gay gal or guy. If there is a sense of not being able to disclose this otherwise very normal and innocuous piece of info about their weekend, they may not trust you. This creates a difference that doesn’t need to be there.  People won’t share, they will change pronouns and generally omit details. Imagine not being able to talk casually about your everyday life? Not fun! Just think that if you are straight, you never run the risk of being accused of having a lifestyle for watching the same Hollywood movie hit as everyone else this past weekend.

The stakes can be high. I am not talking about the lack of legal protections in some states and parts of the world that can result in instant firing for being suspected of being gay (see last week’s column), I am talking about trust. If people do not trust you, you are not going to have the best shot at a high performing team as we have seen from numerous workplace research regardless of LGBT status.

What can you do to ensure you are being inclusive?

– When a new woman joins, do not ask her about her husband, instead use inclusive language like spouse/significant other.
– Show inclusive behavior like mentoring an LGBT team member or being reverse mentored by them.
– Take time to get to know people individually. Just because you know one gay person does not mean you know what all gay people are like.
– Do not say ‘Oh, I have a gay friend’ out of context. Can you imagine if every guy you met made a point of telling you that they had one platonic female friend as an isolated sentence?
– Do tell an anecdotal story about a time that you and your gay friend did something together in context if you want to make the other person aware that you do have exposure to an LGBT person in your life
– Making other people comfortable is a lovely trait no matter who you are and who they are.

If you really want to do more, ask them what they think you can do and open up dialogue. Know that like anything they do not represent all gay people everywhere but rather just one human who like everyone else is getting through life with hopes, dreams, concerns and chores as much as anyone else.

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Why Do Legal Level Playing Fields Matter For Your Career Progress?

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist Nicki Gilmour

“All men are created equal” is written without understanding that at the time it was penned women had no rights and people of color were slaves, so it really did mean men not people. (Disclaimer, I am not an expert so I mention it only to tell you why it matters to you now, at work, in your cube trying to make a living.)

The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was never ratified in the USA (there is still time and you can help with that) and the USA is the only country that won’t ratify the CEDAW agreement internationally (joining a couple of small islands only). What does that mean? Watch the great and slightly harrowing documentary Equal Means Equal to see how culturally this forgotten work on this inequality can play out from the wage gap to the mommy track to much more sinister criminal issues. It is 100% legal for companies to pay you less. Loop holes are everywhere it seems. You might be shocked to learn more about this topic that most of us thought was an issue that had been resolved by generations that went before us.

The law is very mixed when it comes to protecting Lesbians and Gays (and Bi and Trans) people at work. The person beside you could be literally fired in 50% of the States due to being suspected as gay (see ENDA). Did you know that?

Psychological safety in a human can be greatly reduced without equal protections and actual consequences can be real for all aspects of an LGBT person’s life, and increasingly so under certain legislation such as the religious liberties act. On paper, it is a good thing for people in America to be able to honor their belief set but in reality it sets up a paradigm of blanket at worst and pick and choose bigotry at best.  One fellow was refused burial by an undertaker, the federal law  because corporations have the rights of people in America, entire companies could make actual decisions that can refuse to serve people that they perceive as gay from life to death and all the pizzas you might want to eat in the middle. Some states are better than others at providing anti-discrimination protections but overall the picture is dire with only 19 states protecting their LGBT citizens against “corporation as people” potential bigotry. Many people do not realize is still very much in a fragile state.

So, what to do? I certainly cannot tell you who to vote for but I would ask you to understand what you are voting for when you cast your vote at local or presidential level. At work, if you are a woman who wants a level playing field (and some clearly do not consciously or unconsciously) then work for a good company who actively offsets uneven playing fields in a protected state. There are some very progressive companies out there who do their best to level the playing field and arguably with the state of affairs regarding any level playing field federally stalled at best or regressing at worst, great corporations, to their credit, are honoring the progress track.

Pick a winner but check out on issues like pay, promotions and benefits and where senior management show up or do not show up. It is a digital world and due diligence will only take you a moment.

 

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Laid Off? Do Not Get Derailed

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By Nicki Gilmour Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

At some point in your career, you will probably get laid off due to many factors that are usually beyond your control like downsizing, mergers and acquisitions and cyclical market turns in financial services. Do not take it personally! Hard advice if you have given the job 110% of your time and energy and have shown a loyalty that you perceive has not been returned.

Often people come to coaching at this point threatening to leave their industry and wanting to transfer their skills and make a pivot. My job as a coach is to help my client really have an honest look at what is going on- beyond the hurt and the emotion to see if they are truly done with their sector and not just their firm.

Sometimes, after testing the reasoning around why you might want to leave, the answer is then yes and we set about working out a plan on how to transition into the right job in the right firm in the right industry.

Sometimes however, doing the deep work results in you realizing that you love doing the tasks that you were doing, in the industry that you know and love and it was just the shock of being laid off or being somehow displaced in a shuffle that has made you feel resentful, done or stuck. In some cases, people have even taken another job only to find that they want back in. All scenarios are valid and none are really that bad when you have a little perspective. My job is to get you to where you truly want to be. We work out the destination and then figure out the journey together in a way that will get you there. The worst that can happen is that you took a small detour, or maybe you will find that a new destination is what you wanted all along.

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Fear of Change and Other Mental Models That Hold Us Back

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Nicki-Gilmour-bioBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Last week, we spoke about how expanding your mindset can truly take perspective mentally and not be beholden to your home-grown beliefs, paradigms and basically anything that your granny and society told you that you had to think, act and feel. We talked about the more we can move things from purely subjective to being an object then we can be more open to working with new ideas. I describe this to my clients using the glass half full/glass half empty adage, if you reframe it to an object, let’s face it, it is just a glass with some liquid in it and you don’t have to have any feelings around that at all.

Nearly all of us show courage at work and life. Nearly all of us have fears. Those fears are often deeply rooted in paradigms and mental models that we hold that play out in our “inner theater” telling us we could fail, we could lose something, we could look silly (amongst many other things.)

How do you take these anxiety ridden based on nothing assumptions and recognize them as the Gremlins that they are? They are present to sabotage your ability to take the next step and embrace whatever comes with that change?

Kegan and Lahey in their brilliant book “Immunity to Change” offer actual exercises on how to understand what your worries are and how they are often competing commitments to your main objective. For example, you might be keen on delegating more but find that you ultimately want things done your way; making your goal harder to reach.

It is the assumptions (those built in paradigms) that create these competing unconscious and conscious thoughts and behaviors. By surfacing and testing your assumptions – such as what it is that makes you assume that your way is best, you can make real progress towards growing, succeeding and leading!

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Developing Mental Complexity Will Help You at Work (and Life)

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woman thinking - pipelineBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

The world is increasingly complex and can be quite confusing these days.

How do you ensure you have the guts, glory, stamina and agility to survive all this change?

Mental complexity is the answer according Harvard psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey in their book “Immunity to change”. This is my personal favorite book right now for two reasons; I am writing a paper on behavioral change and also am grateful for the change I have personally experienced from committing to examining paradigms that no longer serve me.

This work can take the guise of coaching but touches on all aspects of your existence and is a vehicle for a happy sustainable life in my opinion.

Kegan and Lahey talk about how we tend to be in one of 3 “minds” or mindsets when it comes to our mental complexity levels and this has nothing to do with IQ.

So, level one is a “socialized mind” and is where the majority of people operate. Certainly, junior and middle managers can be successful here as part of being here requires following, caring what people think of you and generally towing the line be it within a corporation, culture or even a religion. People here are good team players. But, what does one lose by seeing life though this lens? If you do not fit with what the norm is, you might find yourself feeling inadequate and uncomfortable or undeserving in some way.

At work, you may be at the mercy of the effects of politics and feeling not aligned (and in society too). You will fight yourself to get aligned and reduce your cognitive dissonance. At what cost?

The next “mind” is the “Self-authoring” mind which with this increased mental complexity, you can relegate others opinions (and even your own opinions) to an appropriate place where they can be referenced within a bigger system than your own direct value set. Therefore, outliers from yourself and others will not consume you, and instead give you the power to bed the author of our own reality. You get to direct the movie in your head.

I can personally attest when I stared to think with this self-authoring mindset it was growth. It changed my life and I see it work well for my coaching clients and when (if) they get there then I can honestly say the ball is in their court which usually results in happier choices and happiness with choices made as well as robust future decision making ability.

This is particularly good for people who have set high standards for themselves or seek approval from others. This level of processing information will move you from having subjective feelings and suffering the emotional fallout from them to seeing things more objectively and in perspective.

By learning to look at as well as through certain lenses, you can evolve and as Kegan and Lahey put it “not be forever captive of one’s own theory, system, script, framework or ideology”. Then, you can start to be in the zone of the “Self-transforming mind” where expansiveness around what you see and hear at work is not uniquely filtered to meet your informational needs. In plain English, you can make meaning on a big picture level and not feel the anxiety around how it effects you which if you are in the socialized mind, will trigger you and make you take it personally. You can care and not be consumed by caring. Doesn’t that sound amazing?

So, how do you build mental complexity to thrive at work and in a crazy world? Tune in next week to find out more….

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From Populism to Passive Investing: Theglasshammer.com’s 9th Annual Top Women on the Buyside event

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By Nicki Gilmournicki gilmour

Last month, theglasshammer reconvened for the ninth year to assemble senior women for breakfast where we discussed the outlook and current trends in the investment management industry. The panel consisted of Barbara Reinhard, Managing Director, Senior Portfolio Manager & Head of Asset Allocation of Voya Investment Management, Donna Parisi, Partner, Global Co-Head of Finance and Global Co-Head of Financial Institutions Industry Initiative at Shearman and Sterling, Kathleen Kelley, Founder and CEO of Queen Anne’s Gate Capital Management, Shaiza Rizavi, Partner and Portfolio Manager at Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co., and Jitania Kandhari, Head of Macroeconomic Research, Emerging Markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. The panelists dynamically addressed questions that were asked by this year’s moderator Amanda Tepper, CEO of Chestnut Advisory Group.

Populism and Protectionism is not good for prosperity

The discussion kicked off with the topic of populism with Jitania Kandhari reminding us this period parallels times in the 20th century specifically, the inter- war period from 1914 to 1945) when periods of boom proceeded busts with the dissatisfaction from those who felt left behind turning to populism. She comments,

“Globalization does bring a lot of prosperity but the elite gain the most. Populists are exclusive not inclusive. They are confrontational not collaborative, and so with reduced commerce and closed borders the results are going to be lowered growth and raised inflation.”

Our panel had varying levels of concern about political risk when it comes to investing but there was an overall agreement on the sentiment that populism and protectionism does not bode overly well for prosperity.

Shaiza Rizavi brought an interesting viewpoint around finding opportunity in the most turbulent of times when she mentioned that many people told her not to go to Kenya in 2008 due to the danger surrounding the dynamics of the election. At the same time, a company she was interested in, Safaricom introduced a new mobile payment platform in Kenya called Mpesa. They had approximately 19,000 subscribers then and now have 26 million subscribers. Payments are made through the platform with many of the poorest being early adopters. Now, 30-40% of Kenya’s GDP now flows via this network. She comments,

“There are growth opportunities even in the most perilous moments if you are willing to take out the fire extinguisher and run into the fire. With the internet and people connected on a second by second basis, you see ideas and flows that were never expected.”

Kathleen Kelley thinks in Europe that we will see higher volatility going forward. She shared an anecdote,

“I did a scientific survey” she says with humor,” of 10 of my male hedge fund friends in London who wanted to vote leave in Brexit and all of them just repeatedly stated that England is the 6th largest economy and that things will be fine.  It is interesting how mindsets are built”.

Barbara Reinhard commented on the fact that this is the first time we are truly having a global acceleration since the financial crisis. She stated,

“Europe is making a recovery. We look at earnings growth and earnings revenue and they are going up, yet the sentiment is still nervous and we are still seeing inexplicably more flows into bond funds than equity funds. Economic expansions die of excess, euphoria and leverage. I don’t see any of these things happening right now.”

Inflation: a reality in the making

The moderator Amanda identified that inflation was a topic that everyone had touched on and asked Kathleen about what is happening in the oil markets.

Kathleen gave an outlook continued OPEC cuts and how the surplus we have in storage is not ending as quickly as we would have hoped. She stated,

“In the 3rd quarter, we might feel the effects of the production cuts and start to draw inventory and that would be a better place for the world to be and not feel like we have so much. If cuts do not continue the price per barrel might be back around the $40’s mark.”

Jitania commented that from a macro perspective, suggesting a period of inflation in the next 2-3 years. She commented,

“China has been exporting deflation and we saw the benefits of that but protectionism and the push to produce locally in the US along with breakdown of trade agreements could definitely create changes.”

Shaiza, often dissenting and providing a different angle, focused on how technological innovation is a deflationary force.

“You start to think about the future differently as many of the historic models wont work for future predictions. The power of connecting people who have never before been connected, and the unleashing of their capability is immense.”

She told the audience how she saw this first hand how lanterns sold to people in Africa and India that previously had no access to light after dark, changed how people interacted and ultimately increased their productivity.

She also mentioned that China’s building a new Silk Road which will allow countries around China to be connected to China and the global economy in an entirely new way. 80% of the China’s oil is currently transported from Strait of Malacca to Shanghai, a journey that took 2-3 months, but with a new port in Pakistan and the 16,000 kilometers delivery journey is reduced to 5,000 kilometers. How will that affect things? She implored the audience to consider the power of change and the power of disruption.

Active versus passive trends

Donna updated the audience with some Citi data on how passive investing has grown to 30% of assets under management by the end of 2015 and how the projection sits at $19.2 trillion of asset flows by 2021. When talking about why has there been a shift, she comments,

“It all comes out of the financial crisis, factor in a lower return environment with lower costs of passive investing and that the banks are not holding risk or warehousing like before the crisis. Also, with improved portfolio risk analysis which is tied to fintech and big data, the way people invest is changing.”

Donna talked about how hedge funds are a maturing market and hedge fund growth is going to be there albeit modest and will hit record levels by 2021. Trends within that sector include liquid alternatives, private debt and private equity so hedge funds are looking to asset classes that are not as easy to access as a headline.

Voya’s Reinhard who has a hybrid of both active and passive commented that as macro driven professionals, she does hunt bubbles and predicts that the tide towards passive has some bubble like qualities that could be worrying for some who just rely on it exclusively. She stated,

“Low cost provider doesn’t always mean highest quality product. In fact, you could argue that passive investing is causing opportunities for active managers. Passive investing, will have at some point unintended consequences.”

Jitania commented on recent research that finding Alpha in investing is cyclical (referencing trends as 1990-94 good for active management, 1995-2000 bad, 200-2009 good and 2010 to current bad). For her business of emerging markets, 40% of returns come from currencies, and she reminded us that is something that you cannot harness with passive investing.

Shaiza again provided interesting insight into the power of disruption and how the private sector can take on roles that the government used to own. She relayed,

“ Amazon for example is now fully capable of handling the logistics of packaging and mail. How will that affect the traditional mail system? Disruptive forces provide opportunity and active investing allows you to be nimble enough to take advantage of that opportunity. “

Outlook and advice

Barbara counseled to watch wage growth carefully for risk mitigation. Kathleen agreed with Barbara with both of them agreeing that US growth is going to disappoint this year and that reforms are not going to be passed in 2017.

Kathleen commented further,

“We are seeing wages starting to pick up and consumer sentiment is high – but they have been behaving different and are stepping back as they see price inflation going up. The stronger dollar is hurting both growth and inflation and keep companies from investing and repatriating “

Jitania offered that China is something that should be watched very closely as China has experienced 82% debt growth over last 5 years. She stated,

“China has added money to its system with many unproductive projects. In 2011, $2 of debt was used to create $1 of GDP and now $5 of debt is used to create 1 dollar of GDP. From a macro perspective, it is definitely something to affect the world since China contributes to a third of world economic growth. “

Jitania added insight into deglobalization and the lingering effects of it on strategy.

“We like countries that have domestic drivers of growth that aren’t relying on external capital flows; countries like Indonesia and even some of the Eastern European countries. From a developed market perspective, we prefer Europe to US. I can buy the top 10 European banks for the market cap of Apple in the US and when something like that pops up on my screen, it feels like distortion.”

Amanda Tepper offered that investor relations is an area that has a positive impact on acquiring assets stating her study which shows that firms with good investor relations result in raising four times more capital than the top performers.

What makes investors choose managers? Performance is not in the top five reasons stated Amanda.

“They want to know what you are doing with their money. Invest in your efforts to explain what you are doing to your investors.”

Donna highlighted fintech as an area to watch starting

“With the existing regulatory schemes, the banking sector has the upper hand when it comes to fintech. We do have a regulatory sandboxes – such as exists in the UK but by and large regulation is a barrier to entry for FinTech startups. Asset management has embraced fintech in the area of data analytics. I think we have seen this most in the retail space with robo-advising and partnerships like Betterment and Goldman Sachs and it is an area to follow.”

Shaiza urged us to rethink the vocabulary we use. Rethinking how we define borders and how we bucket ideas and opportunities. It is an interesting moment to think about the permeability of borders and how technology has changed the ways things get done. She added,

“It might not be possible to even have borders and the protectionism that the populism trend is advocating given technology.”

Barbara added a last piece of advice for all of us in the audience.

“My advice is pay attention to your target date funds – think about yourself for 5 minutes and go check your own retirement funds and apply the advice you give to others when investing money to yourself.”

And, she is right.

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Being a Role Model Isn’t Enough, Stop Being Sexist!

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Two-thirds-of-women-in-fund-management-have-experience-sexism-finds-FTfm-surveyBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

My consistent discovery in my ten years of this work is that women are often serious perpetrators when it comes to sexism against women, albeit quite unconsciously by buying into stereotypes and deferring all authority to any male on most subjects.

Bell Hooks says it best in her excerpt of a book called The Will to Change about why the system of patriarchy is an ugly one that if reinforced by whoever, we will never make progress.

She makes the point which escapes most people which is until we stop denying that we live in an underlying system that stacks the cards against gentle boys in favor of endorsing a tougher, rougher version which as its worst is ‘toxic masculinity’ then we can do whatever we want, but it will be a lose/lose for all concerned.

So what are 3 things you can do today to walk the talk of “Being the change that you want to see in the world?”
  • Break stereotypes when and where you see them being flung around. Men aren’t all left brain, women aren’t all right brain and that Mars and Venus nonsense is insulting.
  • Be yourself and speak from the heart and on brave days speak truth to power as safely as you can.
  • Play the game but only to play enough to change the game so that tomorrow and the next day, the game is less ridiculous for others.
What are 3 things that you have to stop doing?
  • Don’t give a wider behavioral range to your sons with a boys will be boys attitude yet narrowly confine your daughters to defined and different behavioral criteria.
  • Don’t put up with casual sexism at work or home- Casual sexism or micro aggressions are often invisible and so part of the culture that you dont even realize that it is happening. Learn how to spot it and disrupt it on the spot.
  • Don’t regale every boy and man you see with the authority to be the expert, or even to have an opinion on everything. Mansplaining is boring and happens because we all allow men to think if they read a sentence of a topic that you have to listen to them even if you have a Phd in the subject.

Not everyone has the same appetite to be a change agent and that’s ok. But, please know that if you are colluding then you are part of the problem. Something to think about today!

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Pivoting to a New Career

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CV / ResumeBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Dust off your resume and update it for a pivot to a new career.

When was the last time that you looked at your resume? Do you even have one? People often do not think about their resume or CV until they are actively applying for jobs and even then there is usually only one version.

Would it be terrible to have more than one version depending on which direction you want to go. Chances are you had a multitude of experiences that you can shape into categories. If you didnt strictly work in operations, can you sit and think about tasks and projects that were operations based? How would that translate into a narrative? If there is in all honesty very little there, then you can make a call about whether you truly want to pivot into that area and decide what you can do to increase your experience, pick up skills and apply at appropriate levels for jobs.

Success is the end goal. Do not forget that! And, you only have one life so just because you spend many years in one function doesn’t mean you have to do it forever.

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Leave For The Right Reasons

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Many times, people come to me and they have suffered at work.

Be it a perceived slight, being undermined or even harassed in a very real way. It is normal to want to leave the team, firm or in some cases the industry itself. When coaching, we look hard at whether you just need to leave a manager or whether yes in reality you are ready for a complete change of scene. Knowing what you like doing is crucial and we work on getting to the heart of the matter. But, equally it is important to understand that feelings are real. However, the brain can trick us significantly. There is a cognitive theory by Kant that suggests that we see danger so we think we are in danger (thought) and feel fear (emotion) so we run. Brain science is telling us that if we saw a tiger once, chances are we are hyper-vigilant for the next one. We run sometimes because we are feeling fear due to thinking we see a tiger, before we actually see one.

How do we ensure we do not leave the firm or the industry for the wrong reasons? Women and other minority group members are susceptible to this because often yes we saw a tiger once and that is no lie.

Work with a good coach to know if you are anticipating scenarios before they happen and reason out what impact this is having in how you engage, operate and even consider new roles

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com directly for a no obligation discussion

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