Tag Archive for: Nicki Gilmour

To Pioneer or Not to Pioneer? Being the First Female President of the USA

,

hillary-clinton-featuredBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

It has been quite difficult to avoid the US election season this year, even if you do not live in the United States. I have avoided writing about it for many reasons including general fatigue with the whole topic and not wanting to further burden people who want to see some other topic discussed in the media. But, today is election day so how can we avoid it? Today is the day to talk about how it matters and how it should not matter that the potential next President of the USA is female.

Like her or loathe her, Hillary Clinton is doing it. She is determined, smart and driven. You should admire her ambition and her sheer stamina in trying to fulfil it. Equally, we should all understand our immediate blind spot that we have as we would never think about a man’s ambition level. We expect them to be ambitious whether they are or not, just as we expect them to be leader-like in their natural born traits whether they are or not. I have written about this many times and Virginia Schein has pioneered this research for 40 years in her “Think Manager, Think Male” work since the early 1970s.

Many countries including countries that do not have clean drinking water have had female premiers, so again no matter what your politics are or personal sentiments are towards Hillary; she is pioneering and going where no woman has gone before in the USA.

Why does it matter that she is a woman? And why does it matter that you are a woman at work?

Sexism is real. I want to thank Trump for helping us see the real and ugly effects of talk and actions that for too long have been described as innocuous. If he wins today, then we know the road ahead for what it is. The issue is on the table at last, a discussion that can be addressed, as it is most dangerous when subverted and it had lurked under the table pretending that we had already sorted it out when we clearly had not.

If Hillary wins today, then we know that she as one person has a lot of work as President and we should be careful that we do not project all our fears and hopes onto her. One woman in charge does not gender parity make and it will be fascinating to see what happens as research has shown that often a woman in charge is not necessarily great for the talent pipeline.

Asking her to run the free world and change gender inequity without help is a disaster waiting to happen. So, many will relish her being judged about the topic just as so many are questioning why Obama did not fix racism. Sometimes it is easier to not be the identity in question. Asking him to fix racism and asking Hillary to fix sexism is in fact racist and sexist and impossible without everyone doing behavior change yet this is pretty much what we ask diversity managers to do every single day at work.

We have written about assimilation and we have talked about the Queen Bee syndrome. Clinton has been given narrow behavioral parameters during the campaign battles from which she can operate, as all women are. The most encouraging element of this game show competition to be President, is that we can see that women are not going to put up with the sexist nonsense anymore and those who do are exposed for the role they play in what was previously covert collusion with the patriarchical status quo. Equally good men, truly good guys are also going to bat for women in their actions. Discussions can be had and progress can be made, as soon as we get out of the messy middle!

Save

Save

/by

Closing the Investment Gap – Why Is It As Important as the Pay Gap?

, ,

man-and-woman-standing-on-money-featuredBy Nicki Gilmour

Closing the investment gap for women as well as the better- documented pay gap needs to happen. What is the investment gap? And why are most women, even highly paid professional women still missing out? Sallie Krawcheck just wrote a post about the cost of not realizing what we are missing financially by not investing properly on LinkedIn.

Sallie is inviting theglasshammer.com readers to join Ellevest, her new women- orientated advisory for women (and men too) to close the investing gap. I caught up with Sallie this summer and she is someone who I admire greatly and Sallie is a woman who has been there, formidably at the top of the best financial institutions in the world for many years. I asked her why should we care about solving the investment gap?

Sallie responded,

“The investment gap is real and closing it is the best professional advice that nobody is telling you. We need to talk about the real costs of a career break and the real cost of earning less and investing less. We want to empower the individual. I am about unleashing the power.”

Why should we want both men and women managing our money?

A recent survey conducted by The CFA Institute called “Gender Diversity in Investment Management – New research for practitioners on how to close the gender gap” found that most female CFA members (70%) and nearly half of all CFA members in total (48%) believe that mixed gender teams of investment professionals lead to better investment performance results because of more diverse viewpoints.

Interestingly, these are the people who are involved in funds, and often run them directly. In the same survey, institutional investors also scored high in believing there was positive aspects to having a gender diverse team in place as seen in the California State Teachers’ Retirement System encouraging State Street Global Advisors to create the SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (ticker: SHE) in 2016 and seeded it with a $250 million investment.

Meanwhile, in the same study, retail investors were less convinced in the value of women working in wall street bringing higher returns with nearly 50% of those surveyed believing diversity does not matter when it comes to who manages money.

We can conclude from this that the people least close to the process saw the least value in it. That means people like you and me, and people who are not like you and me, can have a range of differing values, education and identities and yet have the same sexist ideas about who we think should lead companies and run money for us.

There is research including the most recent piece from Credit Suisse last week that suggests adding women makes a difference, obviously the right women, but we would say the same about men so we have to be careful to not over scrutinize this concept.

I am a fan of testing reality against research and Joe Keefe, President and CEO of Pax World Management LLC is a leader who is seeing real results.

We caught up last week and chatted about the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Index Fund, which is chaired by Sallie Krawcheck, and has just reported a recent milestone, outperforming the MSCI World Index* for the two-year period ending June 30, 2016 and has $100 million in assets under management.

Joe is a man who gets it and one of the first men to grace our column of the same name. What is it that creates this higher performance when women are present in decision-making seats? Joe comments,

“I believe that having higher female representation at board and senior management level is a causal factor, not just a correlative factor, for higher performance because it is the entire corporate governance structure that tends to improve with women in place.

Pressing Joe on the finer details on being sure that the factor that drives the performance, he told me,

“We try to keep all other variables neutral to allow for an apples to apples comparison for performance analysis.” And added, “This is the only global index of its kind and beyond the research, this is real money from real investors in real time proving the point, not theory.”

How can we link investor gains to the talent pipeline inside firms?

As I reported earlier this year, rather than wait for companies to take action themselves or rely on legislation to be enacted, the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Index Fund is the only global fund and the original index. State Street’s U.S. based SHE Index and other new funds also provide a way for people to fight the gender gap directly by investing in companies that put a premium on women in leadership positions.

Morgan Stanley launched a proprietary gender-diversity framework for ranking more than 1,600 stocks globally this year citing,

“Calls for more female participation in the economy have grown louder, often based on political or cultural arguments founded on fairness. Yet, a persuasive argument for diversity and equality can also be anchored to the bottom line, where ensuring that more women are working and leading in the workplace is simply good business, especially for investors who not only care about the ethics, but also want returns.”

To make sure this theory of ensuring more women are leading becomes action, the onus falls on three groups.

Group 1: The investors have to vote according to their belief in diversity. That means you and me as well as the institutional investors.

Group 2: The intermediaries need to better inform clients better and this could involve reducing the biases of some financial planners and advisors who regardless of being male or female harbor ideas and loyalties that do not help their clients.

Group 3: The other group that needs to do something to ensure that there are companies to list on these indices is of course the leaders and talent process people inside firms.

Sometimes the research on diversity enhancing performance is lost on gatekeepers such as financial advisors and consultants who often do not understand the importance of diversity. I have had a personal experience with that myself with a very “old fashioned” shall we say female advisor who told me point blank not to invest in a women’s fund (and could not seem to say the LGBT acronym). I asked Joe Keefe what to do in these situations and he told me that people should invest directly in the Pax fund or find advisors who understand the benefits of seeing the research in action.

Joe Keefe comments,

“I truly think that we are heading towards higher numbers of women on boards and in senior management teams, and I believe that we could reach 40/50% female representation in our lifetimes. More and more people are realizing that the research is right and the returns are there.”

Sallie Krawcheck, chair of the Pax Ellevate fund agrees,

“It is simply smart business to invest in women and we believe that this investment case will continue to be borne out over time by the performance of this Fund.”

Awareness is the first step, and people like Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Keefe are giving us the chance to put our money where our mouth is and maybe make up for that pay gap that most of us are experiencing (whether we choose to believe it or not.)

Save

/by

Why Wanting More at Work Can Be a Good and a Bad Thing

Image via Shutterstock - Business woman/Career Advice

Image via Shutterstock

I am very guilty of living in the future and this can lead to not being 100% engaged in the present. I justify it by saying that I am a good planner who understands that companies don’t build themselves and argue that the power of an arc in anyone’s professional narrative is part of one’s brand. My executive coach (yes, I am an executive coach who has an executive coach, because I can’t say it enough, everyone can benefit from having one) and several close friends might argue that I am a malcontent. We are all right as there is a fine line between strategy and sabotage regarding your own career plans and happiness in life.

It turns out that neuroscience confirms that seeking out new situations is very much a part of what the brain is supposed to do. Neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp argues that of seven core instincts in the human brain (anger, fear, panic-grief, maternal care, pleasure/lust, play, and seeking), seeking is the most important.

Here are three reasons to live in the present:

1) You may actually have what you want professionally (and personally). Write down your ideal life in a realistic way or aspects of it and map that against your situation and you might see you are closer than you think and if not, then you at least can see where some gaps are and then you can go back to seeking, happily.

2) You may not have what you want, but you may have what you need. See above, this mapping exercise can help you see the positive aspects of your current situation. For example, if you have young kids and you want to see them more then weigh up if you really want that job that requires 80% travel.

3) There is a certainty in the present that you cannot guarantee with a future potential job. The devil you know and all that. You can also get real perspective on the situation to know if you need change or if you are forging change for the sake of it.

To be coached by Nicki Gilmour, CEO of theglasshammer and executive coach or by her coach and vetted partner Valerie Cherneski, contact Nicki today on 646 6882318 or nicki@theglasshammer.com

/by

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

,

thought-leadershipBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

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

/by

Leadership – How to develop yourself to be the leader you need and want to be | Part one

,

female leaderBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

One of my favorite books on leadership and women at work generally is called “Act Like A Leader, Think Like a Leader” written by one of my most admired academics, Herminia Ibarra from INSEAD. Why I like her book so much is that it is practical yet deeply rooted in a subject her and I both have passion for. What is that? Organizational learning and leadership development work.

In fact, one of her sub chapters in the book on how to be a great leader is called,”Steal Like An Artist”. She states that nothing is original and we have to stand on the shoulders of giants to keep evolved concepts and ideas. True to that, the book itself encompasses many of the best theories from other top academics so you get to read it all on one place as well as read Herminia’s insights which I think are top notch. So since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am going to endorse and share with you over the next two weeks in this column what Ms. Ibarra has to say on being more of a leader, being authentic as a leader and finally ensuring you want to be one.

Let’s start with looking at a self-assessment from her book – do you want to step up? Are you in a career building period? Or a career maintenance or a even a career transitioning period? Note: people come to me to be coached in any of these three stages.

Answer the questions with a yes or a no.

Have you been in the same job or career path for at least seven years?
Do you find yourself restless professionally?
Do you find your job more draining than energizing?
Do you resent not having more time for outside interests or family?
Do you have a changing family configuration that will allow you to explore other options?
Are you admiring folks around you who are making big changes?
Has your work lost some meaning for you?
Do you find that your career ambitions are changing?
Recent events have left me appraising what I really want?
Do you find your enthusiam has waned for your work projects?

If you answered yes to 6-10 statements then you could already be deeply in a career-transitioning period. Make time to reflect on your goals and see if your life goals are evolving also.

If you answered yes 3-5 times then you may be entering a career-transitioning period. Work to increase insights and “outsights” which are new horizons that appear from doing new things and meeting new people.

If you got 2 or less yeses then you are more likely to be in a career-building period in your current job so you are busy working on developing within that role, team or firm.

Ultimately, people often go for bigger jobs when they feel the excitement wane, so if that’s the case, let’s see how we can help you get what you want at work!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career the contact nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation chat.

/by

Can You See A Promotional Path At Work? Leaving To Go Up The Ladder

,

Woman-on-a-ladder-searchingBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

This summer we have talked about the scenarios that tend to create catalysts for talented people to seek out career coaches to help them navigate the promotional pathway which sometimes means leaving your current team or firm.

When I am coaching, I often hear that my client does not see a clear promotional path and this can be due to many elements but it always involves politics and people.

Sometimes the lack of vision to what the next internal move is is simply due to rigid corporate structures and a perceived lack of places to be promoted into. The old adages “Dead Men’s Shoes” or “Not enough pie to go around” are often mentioned here. Sometimes that is true, but sometimes you need to realize that space will be made for the “right” people. (* the phrase right people could be a whole article in itself, but that is for another day later this summer on unconscious bias, keep reading this column.)

In other instances, what companies sometimes do not grasp is that ambition does vary person to person but having systemic grind due to bad organizational development creates a pebble in everyone’ shoes that simply de-motivates even the most focused players over time. Can this be addressed? Yes. Is it usually addressed in firms? No. Sadly, due to the slightly invisible nature of company and team culture, the average manager cannot start to solve these issues.

Sometimes wanting to leave is about an individual manager or team member, but proper organizational development work can eliminate many of the bad behaviors that can be practiced by less than desirable coworkers. Bad behaviors appear when survivalism is the culture so some of these same folks might be quite nice colleagues in a different environment. Lewin’s theory suggests that behavior is a function of personality PLUS environment, or in other words, the perfect storm can occur in any firm for hellish behaviors to become commonplace.

Either way, it really is about leaving to get a promotion and work in a better culture.

Culture is “how we do things around here” and that is why we coach here at the glasshammer as we think we have the secret weapon for our coachees- we focus on you the individual but we understand the organizational structures and cultural markers so that we can help you pick the right firm and the right opportunity as your next promotion is everything! Call us for 8 sessions (over 18 months) for an introductory price of $2500 and watch your career take off.

/by

Finding a New Job While Doing Your Job Well

,

Is it time to change jobs, change firms or leave the industry? (F)By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Last week we identified the lack of trust as a reason to leave your current job or firm and trust is everything at work just as it is at home. And a few weeks ago, we talked about how the biggest key for individual and team performance was in fact having psychological safety at work so in many respects this ties into that topic.

There might be reasons to stay and build that trust but I hesitate to give advice over the internet in this column as each case will be different and very personalized to the players and the situation.

Instead, I am going to say it straight; if trust is lacking and cannot be built then leave. Of course, the trick is to do your job well while you are securing your next ( better) role in a different team or company.

Do not “stay and quit”.

Remember, every project you do, or skill you acquire can be talked about on your resume and in your job interviews. Use the time wisely and find a firm where trust is abundant. How do you know that? Ask questions like” What gets rewarded here?”. “What gets tolerated?” and “How does the task (insert your type of tasks that you do) get done around here?”.

Best of Luck!

If you are looking for an executive coach to help you navigate your career then please contact nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation conversation

/by

Reverse and Peer Mentoring – How Can It Help Your Career

,

mentorsBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

If you are managing a team, chances are that the team is already diverse. It may be made up of mixed age groups as well as perhaps having other social identity differences such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, LGBT status etc.

So, have you thought about breaking out of the traditional structure of looking for or being a senior person mentoring a junior person? Instead have you thought about getting a peer mentor or even a reverse mentor? A reverse mentor can be a junior level person mentoring a senior person or can be someone who is reverse to you (gay/straight for example).

The point of the interaction (at least in my opinion) is to learn things that you normally do not have access to. Experiences differ, so create a space where you can hear about them. It will make you a better leader, manager and probably person but only if you can listen without prejudice or judgement. Open your mind, heart and ears!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com to discuss further

Save

/by

3 Tips On How To Manage Your Career During the Dog Days of Summer

,

woman in a field at summer featuredBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Things are finally slowing down as we head into the summer holiday season and yet this is a great time to spend time on managing your career. Here are 3 ways to enhance your skills from the office or even the beach.

Tip #1 Summer reading- pick 1-3 books that you want to read this summer that are career focused or can help you in some way. Text books can be dry, so if books are too much, pick articles (we have 5000 on glasshammer2.wpengine.com) that are research backed and you can read the research for deeper knowledge.

Tip #2 Have Lunch and coffee with your network- refresh your relationships and hear what others are up to professionally with iced coffees and a bite of lunch. Also, use this slower time at the office to secure a lunch with important sponsors and new people for your network.

Tip #3 Recharge a little yourself, so that you are ready for the fast-paced flow of work and meetings once the dog days of summer are over!

Happy Summer! And Happy Independence Day in the US!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career please contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com to discuss further.

Save

/by

How to be a good Sponsor and Champion to LGBT people in their careers

, ,

LGBT flag featuredBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

Following on from last week’s career advice and staying with the LGBTA theme for the month since June is Pride month, today I am going to talk about how to be an Ally, Champion and Sponsor to your LGBT colleagues and co-workers. I come across many people who want to be an inclusive leader and ensure that their team members get to focus on work and not on fitting it or assimilating instead. However, many leaders and managers with the best of intentions still do not have many LGBT mentees or sponsees. Tips to ensure your portfolio of people that you mentor is diverse can include:

Do not be afraid of offering up supportive statements to indicate you are an Ally. Gay team members often do not know where you stand on the topic as a concept because sadly the topic is still at ‘concept’ level ( there are still millions of overtly homophobic people out there some more covert than others, how do we know that you are an ally if you don’t tell us!)
Don’t presume you know them just because you know one other gay person (or even several) because like racial bias, you are stereotyping whether you realize it or not.
Respect their individual personality on how much they want to talk about their spouse and family just as you would any other coworker, not everyone wants to share regardless of their identity. Equally, ask them the questions you ask your other team members ( like: hey how was your weekend, how are the kids etc?)
Coach other less exposed/less evolved executives on your team and know you are a culture carrier.

Know that you have the ability to advance people individually but also change the system so that future generations can truly come to work and not have to come out everyday and fear mixed reactions.

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you want to hire an executive coach to help you navigate your career

Save

/by