Tag Archive for: Pride Month

How to Thrive in the New Workplace: Why Learning Agility is Your Secret Weapon

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agilityIf you’ve ever felt like the rules of advancement keep changing just when you think you’ve figured them out, you’re not alone. The challenge with “Merit” as we know it is that research demonstrates that people worldwide tend to believe their societies are more meritocratic than they actually are, and this blind spot particularly affects professional women, LGBTQ+ and people of color. Interestingly, studies show that when organizations emphasize meritocracy as a value, it can actually trigger implicit gender biases.

Most humans are fascinatingly steeped in their contextual and subjective realities, combine that with stereotypical implicit beliefs and it is cognitively easy to believe that more effort would equal more success. Social psychology meets neuroscience very quickly here to result in false conclusions with real life negative impacts for people when surface thinking instead of systems thinking is applied by HR and leaders.

Why Learning Agility is Your Competitive Edge

Here’s where it gets interesting. The most successful organizations are shifting away from traditional merit measures toward something called “learning agility”— and this change could be your secret weapon. Learning agility isn’t just about taking more courses or earning additional certifications. It’s about demonstrating your ability to adapt, grow, and deliver results in new situations. Research shows that learning agility — the ability to learn from experience — is one of the key characteristics of high-potential employees. Even better, Korn Ferry research shows that people with high learning agility are promoted twice as fast as individuals with low learning agility.

This shift matters because it measures what you can do, not just what you’ve already done. For women who may have had fewer opportunities to build traditional credentials, learning agility creates new pathways to demonstrate your potential.

Four Ways to Build Your Learning Agility Profile

1. Become the Solution Finder

Instead of just executing tasks, position yourself as someone who tackles complex problems. Studies demonstrate that workforce agility enhances not only individual performance but also promotes innovation and effective knowledge dissemination. When challenges arise, volunteer to lead cross-functional teams or pilot new approaches.

Action Step: In your next team meeting, don’t just report on your progress. Come prepared with one process improvement suggestion and offer to lead the implementation.

2. Make Your Learning Visible

It’s not enough to learn—you need to demonstrate how your learning translates into results. Research indicates that learning agility directly affects employee engagement and innovative behavior, but only if others can see the connection.

Action Step: After completing any training or taking on a new challenge, send a brief summary to your manager highlighting what you learned and how you’re applying it. Include specific metrics when possible.

3. Seek Stretch Assignments

Learning agility is best demonstrated through performance in unfamiliar situations. Ask for projects outside your comfort zone, volunteer for challenging assignments, or request to work with different teams or departments.

Action Step: Identify one area where your organization needs improvement but lacks expertise. Propose a pilot project and position yourself to lead it, even if it’s not directly related to your current role.

4. Build Your Feedback Loop

Learning agility requires continuous improvement, which means you need honest feedback. Create a system for getting regular input from colleagues, clients, and supervisors about your performance and growth areas.

Action Step: Schedule quarterly “learning check-ins” with your manager. Come prepared with specific questions about your performance and growth areas, and ask for concrete suggestions for improvement.

Navigating the Transition

Not every organization has made this shift yet, and you may encounter resistance. In 2020 Robin J. Ely and David A. Thomas share in HBR a study named “Getting serious about diversity: Enough with the business case” as a follow up from their 1996 research paper called Managing Differences Matter which included a prediction of an emerging paradigm cited as the learning and effectiveness paradigm. This work may have provided answers if it had of been applied, but the work was not undertaken by most firms at scale. For meritocracy or “diversity” benefits to truly be realized, organizations have to adopt a learning orientation and be willing to change structures, and culture.

If you are in a more traditional environment or an environment now recoiling from their last twenty years efforts, focus on building your learning agility profile quietly while demonstrating clear results.

Your Next Steps

The workplace is changing, and this shift toward learning and effectiveness could be the key to unlocking opportunities that traditional merit systems may have denied you. Start building your learning agility profile.

1. Assess your current situation: Where have you demonstrated learning agility in the past year?
2. Identify growth opportunities: What challenges could you volunteer to tackle?
3. Make your learning visible: How can you better communicate your development to key stakeholders?
4. Build your support network: Who can provide feedback and advocate for your growth?

The traditional rules of advancement may have been stacked against you, but the new rules reward exactly what you bring to the table: adaptability, fresh perspectives, and the ability to learn and grow. It’s time to make that work in your favor.

Work with a coach – book in for an exploratory chat to see if coaching is right for you HERE

By Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com and Evolved People Coaching

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Sam Rapoport: CEO, Blue80

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Sam Rapoport“In this work around gender equity, I know I may never see the full fruits of my labor in my lifetime. But I want to be the one who plants the seed,” says Sam Rapoport. “If others can water it and sustain it, then I’ve done what I came to do, and I’m okay with that.”

Sam Rapoport knows that there is value in playing the long game. When it comes to change, she knows that you have to put in an intentional effort. As an out LGBTQ professional, Rapoport also knows that being yourself means betting on yourself.

As a high school and college quarterback growing up in Canada playing tackle, touch, and flag football from a young age, Rapaport honed the ability of making rapid decisions under pressure.

“You have three seconds to get rid of the ball, and you are making a hundred decisions in those three seconds,” she says. “You have five people in your face trying to attack you. I taught myself at a young age to become calm in those moments.”

The instinct to remain focused, fast, and forward-thinking shaped not only Rapoport’s playbook on the field but also guided her career at the NFL (National Football League). Over two decades, she rose from intern to changemaker, pioneering trailblazing work in gender equity. More recently, she made the fearless decision to step away from her full-time role, choosing to share her hard-won lessons more widely as a consultant and keynote speaker.

“I want to help organizations around the world achieve progress more quickly,” she explains. “Because this work is so much bigger than the sport of football.”

Learning to Shoot Your Shot

Rapoport’s emergence as a changemaker in professional football began with an unconventional pitch. “In 2003, I submitted a resume to the NFL with an actual football. On the football I wrote, ‘What other quarterback could accurately deliver a pass 3,806 miles?’ which was the distance between my university and the league office. That stood out to someone in HR.” It earned her a coveted internship and foot in the door of a historically male-dominated league.

However, Rapoport’s proudest achievement was not just breaking in, but helping other women do the same.

“For the last 10 years at the NFL, I created a program that served to introduce women into coaching. I took on the Boys’ Club. I took on an establishment that had done things the same way for a hundred years, which was putting men in coaching roles, and I questioned it and then I created a platform that changed the game for women in coaching.”

She continues, “now as of this past season we have 15 women working in full time coaching roles, which is more than double any male professional sports league in the world.”

Rapoport emphasizes that the program’s success didn’t happen by chance. It was the result of years of focused effort and a deliberate strategy, or “a blueprint for accelerating change”. A key element of that blueprint is a framework she learned along the way: the 20/70/10 Rule.

“I have found that 20% of any organization understands what needs to be done to make the change – they’re bought in. 70% want to do the change but have no idea how. And 10% wants nothing to do with it,” she explains. “Focus your energy on moving the 70% into the 20%. Ignore the 10%. The ground moves from under the 10% statistically anyway.” For Rapoport, it’s about shifting the focus from fighting resistance to fueling momentum.

Today, Rapoport continues consulting to the NFL Women’s Forum and is helping build the league’s first professional flag football league, one of her childhood dreams. She is also advising organizations like the USTA (US Tennis Association) on engaging more women in coaching. And one of her latest accomplishments includes working with USA Flag Football on creating a path to the sport being featured in the next Olympics. Finally, she makes sure to leave time for keynote speaking, which she describes as, “probably my favorite part of my job because I can deliver a lot in a short period of time on how to create change.”

On Being Yourself – Truly

As she worked to open doors for others, Rapoport also navigated what it meant to “be herself” in the workplace.

“I wasn’t out in the first decade of my career at the NFL…Everyone always says, ‘Be yourself,’ but that’s easy when you look and act like the default person at an organization,” she reflects. “It’s a lot more challenging when you are a member of the gay community, or the Black community, or the Latinx community.”

She continues, “when I felt confident enough to make the change to come out and be myself unapologetically…I started to thrive.”

Beyond being out at work, Rapoport defines being herself as, “finding the middle ground between professional you and weekend you. It’s about dropping the act, ditching the corporate lingo, the need to sound like a textbook, or mimic your boss, and just being real.”

However, Rapoport is quick to acknowledge the privilege required to let one’s guard down. “There’s a privilege in seniority to be able to do that. Younger people have a harder time.” She emphasizes that safety is paramount, both in professional and personal spaces. “It’s up to the environment. The environment owes it to you to make it safe to come out. I came out when it was safe, and before, it didn’t feel that way.”

Betting on Yourself

When it comes to navigating moments of self-doubt, Rapoport is clear: it’s not about faking it until you make it. “In my opinion, that’s the worst advice you could give anyone. If you fake it, then imposter syndrome kicks in.” Instead, her mantra is “publish and iterate.” Try something, learn from it, refine it, and keep going.

“I have a lot of things, but I don’t have imposter syndrome,” she says. “I’m okay with putting something out there and maybe running away after I do, but I’ll fix it from there.”

She and her wife even have a motto: “We’re betting on ourselves.” Whether it’s stepping into a new gig or turning down one, the calculus is simple: “We’re literally putting all our chips on us. And if it works, great. If it doesn’t, we learn.”

A Pragmatic Path to Meritocracy

With years of experience in gender equity, Rapoport offers an informed perspective of what’s falling short in DEI and what has the potential to move it forward. “We need to stop with these massive pendulum swings,” she says. “It has to be apolitical.” She believes real progress is possible and meritocracy is about removing barriers so that everyone has the same access to opportunities. Rapoport is also adamant that true equity work must be intersectional stating it to be critical to ensure access to all women.

At the heart of her work is a long-term vision that stretches beyond any single organization or lifetime. “I think ahead 100 years, and I think of what the NFL can look like with all genders being ubiquitous,” she says. “With half of the head coaches being women. Half of the general managers. Half of the owners.”

Rapoport is not pushing for dominance, but for balance. “I don’t believe the future is female, I believe in balance, and I believe the future is everyone – equal representation of great people. That’s how you start to take down very destructive structures that hurt marginalized people.”

Outside work, Rapaport is “massively into plants,” plays three instruments, cooks, paints, and has a list of future hobbies she is excited to learn. But her greatest joy, she says, is her family. “I am so proud of how functional and healthy and happy my family is,” she laughs. “And I’m very passionate about putting my energy there over anything.

By Jessica Robaire

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LGBTQ Rights: Why Companies are Leading the Charge

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 By Aimee Hansen

LGBTQ

image via Shutterstock

With civil liberties at risk, companies have become the unexpected heavy-hitting champions of LGBTQ rights.

During Pride Month, theglasshammer often focuses on advocating for equality within corporations, but companies are increasingly playing a powerful role in driving equality within broader society.

Companies are proving to be the most powerful adopters of LGBTQ rights, while defending those rights on a state and federal level.

This sets up an odd paradox when it comes to protecting the rights of LGBTQ workers: government leans out while companies lean in.

Government setbacks to LGBTQ protections

Denying LGBTQ rights remains as emotive fodder on the political table, when it comes to appealing to voters and appeasing constituents on the religious right.

While most voters overwhelmingly support a federal LGBT-non discrimination bill (protecting gender identity and sexual orientation), no federal law protects LGBTQ workers against discrimination. It’s legal in 28 states to fire an employee for being gay.

Summing up Trump’s first 100 days, NBC recently wrote, “when it comes to LGBTQ discourse, his impact has been as loud as an air raid siren.” Gender identity and sexual orientation references have been erased from White House and State Department websites, a national survey and the 2020 U.S. Census.

In late March, as Rolling Stone put it, “Trump Quietly Went After LGBT Workers” by revoking the Obama-era Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which required those companies doing business with the federal government to prove their compliance with federal laws and executive orders (such as the complementary order on LGBT protections, also signed in by Obama).

The repeal by the Trump administration displaced the burden of adherence from companies to LGBTQ people, creating a loophole around protections and conveying the message that the Trump government is indifferent to them.

A draft “license to discriminate” Trump executive order was leaked that induced fear across the community. The order would have effectively endorsed broad discrimination against the LGBTQ community on everything ranging from social services to healthcare to education to jobs, based upon religious reasons – likely violating the First Amendment.

While the White House denied the leaked order and backed away from the overt discrimination, Trump’s “Religious Liberty” order increased the latitude with which religious organizations can publicly favor or oppose candidates while remaining tax-exempt (a unilateral undermining of the Johnson Amendment), directed government to “to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom,” and directed federal agencies to consider exempting some religious groups from providing birth control to employees and staff.

The light in this legislative tunnel is that a federal appeals court in Chicago ruled that companies cannot discriminate against LGBT employees, one interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that may make its way to the Supreme Court.

Corporate surge in protecting LGBTQ rights

As legislative protection rolls backwards, the Corporate Equality Index 2017 report (CEI) released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC) indicates that a record number of top U.S. businesses are leaping forward in protecting LGBTQ rights and providing benefits.

517 businesses earned the CEI’s top score of 100, a 25% jump within a single year and “the largest jump in the 15-year history of the nation’s premiere benchmarking tool for LGBT workplace equality.”

HRC notes that companies with non-discrimination protections for gender identity has increased from 3% (in 2002) among the Fortune 500 companies to 82% (including Walmart), showing commitment to protecting transgender workers.

This year, the report also expanded benchmarks to include global policies, and now 92% of CEI-rated companies “include both sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination protections that apply to workers domestically and internationally.”

As written in Quartz, “Businesses are becoming increasingly invested in LGBT rights and diversifying their workforce because, as Out Leadership’s managing director Stephanie Sandberg says, ‘their competitive edge depends on it.’”

Business sustainability is interlinked with employee equality. “Big business was way out ahead of government when it came to creating domestic partner benefits for their teams—and they remain way out in front when it comes to non-discrimination policies,” noted Todd Sears, founder of Out Leadership.

Corporate activism against anti-equality legislation = good business

Multinational companies are not only poised, but increasingly called upon, to lead the LGBT equality revolution, arguably because it benefits them to do so.

HRC notes that U.S. companies are increasingly playing a leading activist role in “opposing anti-equality legislation” at the state and federal levels. Last year, 68 companies joined HRC to oppose North Carolina’s HB2 “bathroom bill” while over 200 businesses signed an open letter to repeal the law.

“Corporate America has risen to the top in terms of being a high-impact influencer” on LGBT rights, said Deena Fidas, Director of HRC’s Workplace Equality Program. “We have corporations going on the record at the federal level, at the judicial level and certainly at the state level speaking out against what we would call anti-LGBT bills.”

As Sears told Quartz,

“Big businesses are positioned to drive equality because, again, a state-based patchwork of laws that impact their ability to attract, retain, and support all of their employees is ultimately bad for business.”

“Laws that prevent LGBT equality across many state and country borders impose a significant burden on these companies and harm their ability to attract and retain the best employees,” echoed Selisse Berry, CEO and founder of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, and Ken Janssens in Newsweek. “That’s why multinational firms must speak out for equal rights wherever they do business.”

 “Don’t just do no harm. Do good.” 

 At the International Business and Human Rights Conference in April, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Lilianne Ploumen, noted international companies taking up the mantle of corporate human rights defenders, and urged more to do so.

At the base level, protecting human rights must be paramount within a company’s own supply chain. Ploumen stated, “We need to be very clear on this: sustainable development without respect for human rights is an illusion. We cannot call economic growth ‘sustainable development’ if people’s rights are being trampled to make it possible.”

“Going beyond human rights in your own value chain is the next frontier in business and human rights,” she added, citing the examples of corporate advocacy in North Carolina and Georgia as ready evidence of the need even in ‘developed’ countries. “Companies that are not just concerned with their own value chains, but are willing to advocate for human rights more broadly. Both because they believe it’s the right thing to do and because they know their customers expect no less of them.”

Ploumen pointed out that multinational companies hold unique and powerful leverage when it comes to advocating civil rights because states and countries want their business, echoing a Davos 2016 discussion. Companies must impress, she said, that “legal certainty for companies and human rights for citizens go hand in hand.”

Ploumen urged business leaders,

“You too can join the ranks of the corporate human rights defenders. Because you know that, in the end, respecting human rights pays off. I know that’s what you want. And you know it’s what your customers and shareholders want – even if some of them don’t know it yet. So don’t just do no harm. Do good.”

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