In many companies, efforts to convince management to dedicate resources toward the advancement and retention of women continue to fall on deaf ears. Decades of effort have gone into conveying the point that women are just as valuable as men – yet a misunderstanding of “value” often causes people to miss the point of gender diversity.

To many people, “equal value” means “sameness.” They think, if men and women are the same, then why should we expend so much effort increasing our numbers of women when they will contribute in the same way as men?

Of course men and women are of equal value, but whether by social conditioning or biological construction, they aren’t the same. Studies show that, in general, women think through problems differently than men, are motivated differently than men, and build relationships differently than men.

Efforts toward gender diversity don’t mean the “feminization” of the corporate space as one recent Forbes contributor so distressingly put it. Gender diversity means that companies have the benefit of a multitude of viewpoints and ways of solving problems and a wealth of critical insight to draw from as they approach 21^st century complexity in a diverse, global marketplace.

But this is the problem that diversity advocates face – a misunderstanding of the value of diversity that leads many to believe that diversity is nothing more than a numbers game designed to annoy people with more important work to do. And this is why Barbara Annis says she developed the concept of Gender Intelligence two decades ago.

“I was really looking at the concept of gender equality, and how to advance and retain women – but that mindset is really a numbers game. I didn’t approach how men change their mindset for equality.”

She continued, “Especially in finance and technology, companies were saying ‘we’ve got one woman or we’ve got five women,’ but they weren’t saying ‘we need their perspective.’”

Challenges in Implementing Gender Intelligence

At first glance, Gender Intelligence may seem like a reductive “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” approach, or more likely a “men are left-brained and women are right-brained” standpoint. We all know (and many of us are) left-brained women. This oversimplification of Gender Intelligence to the point of cartoonishness doesn’t do anyone any good, and when it is applied in this manner, can alienate those who feel they don’t fit the norm.

For example, telling a group of female financial analysts or programmers that the reason they are having trouble advancing in their department is because they are right-brained creatives is likely off-base, and hardly helpful.

Nevertheless, Annis pointed to neuroscientific research on the topic as one way to illuminate the value of diversity. “There is a gender norm around how men and women are wired. By remembering this, we remove effort to make women more like men or vice versa.”

It is difficult – and some may argue inappropriate – to connect neuroscientific research to outward behavior, but research does show some physical differences in male and female brains.

But more importantly, Annis explained, the point is to celebrate differences in how men and women work, rather than quash them. “Gender Intelligence is a kind of a new Emotional Intelligence. It’s about how to understand the fundamental differences in how men and women feel valued, and how to understand them in terms of a gender framework.”

One aim of the field is to ensure that people are rewarded for being authentic, rather than conforming to a homogeneous standard. “That’s the mini-me syndrome – assessing people based on things that tend to be a white male model. Many women won’t survive this. Women want to be authentic and be appreciated for the strengths that they bring.” And she added, company management should value those strengths.

“You need a really compelling business case, but I also think that one of the conditions of success that needs to be present is a really authentic desire in senior leadership to bring in gender diversity,” Annis said.

Onward and upward is a familiar mantra to those who have encountered professional setbacks. And let’s face it—most everyone at some point must deal with unwanted, and in many cases, unexpected, job-related stumbling blocks along their career path.

Whether due to a layoff, management shakeup, office politics, or a bad boss, career setbacks have the potential to be disorienting at best, and debilitating at worst. By the nature of such disappointments, career blows can affect our sense of professionalism, livelihood, and self-esteem.

Though the initial tendency may be to avoid dealing head-on with major setbacks because of complexity and emotion, taking the time to learn from these experiences can help turn what looks like an end of the road into just a bend. “When dealing with a setback, I really don’t like to figure out what I did wrong, but eventually you have to,” says Becky Walzak, president and CEO of Walzak Consulting. “I have learned that the distance of time is the best microscope for assessing why things happened the way they did.”

Despite the inherent challenges in being faced with career impediments, there are ways you can get back on track more quickly after you’ve been derailed. The Glass Hammer spoke candidly with several women who have suffered significant setbacks in their professional lives yet found ways to successfully overcome their obstacles. The following strategies summarize the group’s best advice on how to move onward and upward from negative job experiences.

Line Up Advocates

Women’s leadership coach Vicki Donlan, author of Her Turn: Why It’s Time for Women to Lead in America, says lining up advocates can play a key role in helping to circumvent setbacks. “Going it alone never works,” says Donlan. One of Donlan’s clients spent two years presumably being groomed for a director position, only to have her company go outside the firm for the hire. Donlan coached her client to meet directly with the partner she had the closest relationship with, and express her dissatisfaction with the process. By taking this initiative, she learned that the partner actually had been against the outcome. She then took the opportunity to work closely with her new advocate at the top, and within 9 months had both a raise and the job that she wanted.

Walzak agrees that it is critical to know who you are working with, and separate supporters from potential derailers. “While the issues may appear different for someone working in a large company, a small company, or your own company, people tend to be the same,” says Walzak. “There will be those who are scared by your abilities and may try to prevent you from succeeding. There will be those who celebrate what you can do and help you succeed. Either way you should get to know them well.”

Find Outside Support

While having advocates inside the company can be invaluable, outside supporters can fill a different role in helping to move you through career valleys. Lauren Still, founder of Careerevolution Group, says seeking a skilled outside perspective from a non-colleague can help you step back, see the bigger picture, and prioritize your actions. “You may need to vent, and it is better to do so outside of work, so you can maintain a professional image in the office,” says Still. “A support partner can assist you to see the forest not the trees, recognize what is a chronic issue and what is temporary, and brainstorm solutions.”

During Walzak’s career setbacks—which included being assured she would be at the top of the list for a promotion that she didn’t receive, and starting a company that failed—she found external friends and family to be her strongest supporters rather than colleagues. “You really need some cheerleaders in your corner to keep your spirits up, and I have generally found these outside of my business,” says Walzak. “Within the business, most people are either expecting you to fail or are more interested in what you could do for them if you were successful.”

Keep Faith in Yourself

In the face of career obstacles, one of the biggest enemies we must fight is ourselves. Career setbacks can shake us to our core, making us doubt ourselves and our abilities, while leaving our self-esteem in shambles. To overcome this, women must find ways to keep believing in themselves during professional low points. “Generally, I have found that the hardest part of a setback is trying to keep faith in yourself,” says Walzak. Nikki Sells, vice president of client services at IFX International, Inc., recommends that women try to override this tendency toward self-doubt when in the middle of a setback, and maintain absolute confidence in their instincts. “We become out own worst enemy when we second-guess ourselves,” she says.

Still has noticed these tendencies as well with her clients. She notes that one result of losing confidence is experiencing a sense of anxiety and overwhelm. These feelings if not dealt with can lead to a snowball effect of unproductive behaviors that intensify job problems, such as decreased effectiveness, productivity, and poor performance reviews, which then spiral into loss of motivation and personal pride. “When someone starts to lack control over their situation at work, I see behaviors that are not typical of the usual professional person,” says Still. “This may emerge as snapping at people, losing your cool, ignoring issues because you feel you don’t have the capacity to solve them, and inability to support others.”

Still notes that when you are stressed and overwhelmed, it is hard to be creative and logical, yet emphasizes that those are exactly the skills you need to get through the crisis. She recommends that women in this situation take a step back and redefine their values, strengths, and personal brand. This could involve focusing on your innate talents and positive characteristics, and then mapping out where you want to go in your career and how to get there.

Feminist scholar Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar describes her own career setbacks as a “rollercoaster,” having changed careers three times in the last six years. “Taking the long view and believing in yourself are not just feel-good taglines,” she says. “If you don’t know your own value, how will anyone else?” Her strategy to surf the waves has been to try to stay vital so that her skills are more transferable to other organizations. “From the minute I knew I was unhappy, I began developing skills and other knowledge that I was interested in but that would also be valuable to a prospective employer,” says Rajakumar. “You have to be out there constantly updating yourself, or you’re dead in the water.”

It’s also important to give yourself the time to come to terms with the setback, and see what lessons it may hold. When you’re in the middle of a negative experience, it’s hard to have accurate judgment, so you shouldn’t rush yourself to figure it all out. “Sometimes setbacks occur because of what you did or didn’t do, and sometimes they happen because of what someone else did or didn’t do,” says Walzak. “The best course of action is to identify how you can change it the next time. So don’t react right way. Take some time and figure it out. Then make plans.”

Finally, take the long view on any perceived setbacks along your career path—don’t assume a setback won’t help you in the long run. “See the advantage in a setback in your career,” says Donlan. “Most often this is when the best opportunities present themselves.”

You can’t always anticipate the specific work-related challenges you will face. But you can anticipate that you will likely experience challenges. By accepting this fact, you can better navigate those career challenges that many women experience. “The best way to rebound from a career setback is to have prepared for it ahead of time,” says Mary Lee Gannon, president of StartingOverNow.com.

Preparing yourself for potential challenges can help you avoid getting stuck or derailed. While the nature of work life is that it’s unpredictable, your approach to managing it should be more strategic than haphazard. Here are a few strategies for proactive career management that can help you keep one step ahead of the game.

Plan Ahead

A basic proactive strategy is to do some research in advance that will prepare you to make a jump if you need one. Career coach Stacy Swearengen, who specializes in portable career planning, has frequently faced the obstacle of relocation, having had to abandon three professional opportunities to keep her family together. In each instance, she had worked her way up to a higher salary, only to give it up and start from scratch when her family moved again. “Perpetual relocation is a very difficult thing for any woman hoping to climb the career ladder,” says Swearengen. “Every relocation is like taking a step back.”

To try to mitigate damage to her career trajectory, Swearengen started researching companies with nationwide offices after her first relocation, knowing that the odds of transferring her job would be higher with a national company. She focused her search on companies that would embrace her unique situation and view her continued relocations as an asset rather than a detraction. Swearengen says that although it may seem labor-intensive to do such data digging before actually needing it, it can save time down the road when the same obstacles repeat themselves. “It essentially helped keep me on the right track, instead of continuing to get off and have to scramble to get right back on,” says Swearengen.

Another smart form of advance planning is to think ahead about what you might need should you change jobs in the future. Gannon emphasizes the importance of gathering referral letters in advance—particularly from the upper reaches of the organization. “Collect letters from everyone you have worked for or with who is placed well, has a good title, and knows people,” says Gannon. “Don’t wait until you are leaving to collect these letters.” She recommends jumpstarting the process by providing all references with a list of quantifiable milestones you achieved while working together. She also suggests requesting referral letters from colleagues when they are preparing to move on.

Focus on Flexibility

Some women find themselves at professional crossroads when they encounter a pressing need to focus on family, yet their chosen career track prevents them from meeting that need. In such cases, women may feel forced to choose a path that results in a significant professional setback by stepping out of the workforce entirely, perhaps with the intention of reentering after some time away.

Stephanie Harbour, president of Mom Corps NYC, notes that an overall lack of diverse options to structure jobs and careers can leave some high-level professionals high and dry. Beyond the individual level, having too few nontraditional career options—such as high-level part-time work, telecommuting, or project-based positions—encourages an exodus from the workforce of talented women who later struggle to reenter at the same compensation or experience level. Harbour adds that this setback typically occurs for women right around childbearing age, between ages 27 to 35—ironically, one of the most critical periods for advancement in a professional career.

To proactively combat this challenge, Harbour says women must educate themselves on flexible workplace policies and nontraditional career choices. Studies show that there is room for improvement in women’s approach to exploring flex options before making major career decisions. In the Center for Work-Life Policy’s 2010 report Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Revisited [PDF], while 69 percent of women said they would not have taken a career break if there were flex options available with their company, 54 percent of women reported leaving their career without even discussing flex options with their employer in advance.

“The traditional 9AM-5PM, in office, permanent position is increasingly a career structure of the past,” says Harbour. “By negotiating for a flexible position or finding a way to stay engaged in one’s professional career, women can retain and grow their skills and networks and keep the door open for the career track they desire,” says Harbour.

Don’t Play It Safe

In some cases, a decision to stick with what seems like the safe and secure option instead of taking a calculated risk can backfire. While we often assume that remaining an employee of a corporate parent is the smart and stable choice when it comes to avoiding future career challenges, some women feel that being your own boss or moving to a smaller company gives you more leverage to manage your career without being ceiling-capped or held back by corporate politics.

“As a small business owner there is much less of the glass ceilings—as a woman you can truly create your own destiny,” says Nikki Sells, vice president of client services at IFX International, Inc. “The corporate world is different. It is very easy for women to get pigeonholed in a job.”

Attorney Amy Oppenheimer, founder and president of the Association of Workplace Investigators, explains that she experienced a major career setback when she decided to give up her own business in exchange for the “safe choice” of working for an employer, for the sake of security and childrearing. “After having my own law office, I took a job as an administrative law judge and worked in that capacity for many years before going back out on my own,” says Oppenheimer. “I did this because, like many women, I am risk averse and because a secure job that did not require overtime was good for my family.”

Oppenheimer says what helped her to get back on track despite her setback was based on proactive planning: she opted to keep a hand in other interests, so that she could transition back and restart her own business when she left traditional employment. She also took an early retirement from her former employer so that she would have plenty of productive years left to do what she really wanted to do. “Always continue to keep relationships going, knowledge fresh, and interests alive,” says Oppenheimer. “I kept my other interests alive so that I had options when I left. As a result, my business is thriving.”

The Financial Times recently reported that the number of female executive directors on FTSE 350 boards has slipped in the past year – even after significant work to raise awareness of the benefits of board diversity in the UK following the release of the Lord Davies Report.

In fact, wrote Elizabeth Rigsby, the FT’s Chief Political Correspondent, “89 per cent of FTSE 350 companies have no female executives on their boards.”

Prospective female directors in the US are faring better – but not by much. According to Catalyst research released late last year, women occupy only 16.1 percent of Fortune 500 board directorships. That means over four out of five board seats belong to men. And, the report said, about one in ten Fortune 500 companies had no women on their boards.

Why is it that, despite all the research pointing to the business value of boardroom diversity, companies still stubbornly refuse to open the boardroom door to diverse candidates? Here are three convenient non-excuses that boards make for their lack of business-building diversity – and how to counter them.

1. “There just aren’t enough women with C-suite skills.”

In a recent FT article, Rebecca Knight writes that the lack of women on boards is frequently related to the lack of women in the C-suite, as many companies view C-suite experience as a critical qualification for board directorship.

“But that is just an excuse,” she says. She quotes Lucy P. Marcus, professor of leadership and governance at IE Business School in Madrid on why only pursuing candidates who’ve been in the C-suite can create a shallow, homogeneous board. Marcus says:

“There are countless talented women who can and do serve very ably on boards, and they can even bring a bonus of adding much-needed diversity of other kinds as well, be it entrepreneurial, international, functional, or cross-sector experience. The important thing is not to be wed to a cookie-cutter image of what makes a strong board candidate.”

By looking beyond C-suite experience as a prerequisite for board service, companies can gain diverse and qualified director candidates who have skills and experience that better serve the reality that today’s complex, global corporations face on the ground.

2. “Women don’t stay in the game long enough to get to the boardroom.”

At a time when women surpass men in almost every field of education at almost every level, it’s worth pointing out that if companies are really having that much trouble finding qualified women to serve in their boardrooms, and if they really are dedicated to the long term success of their companies, then they should allocate more time and resources toward retaining women at the mid-level, since that’s when the pool of female talent often begins to thin out.

By keeping women in the management pipeline to the top, companies would benefit from the kind of diversity that makes companies stronger and more profitable. As Busniessweek’s Kevin Crowly reported last fall, according to the Association of British Insurers, “promoting women to the higher echelons of management will improve firms’ risk management, encourage debate around strategy and help them focus on longer term objectives.”

This will take some rethinking of the corporate ladder. Women leave the workforce more often than men and face challenges getting back in at the same level – which often keeps them from returning – but companies with a keen understanding of the value of diversity are working to fix this structural imbalance. For example, Goldman Sachs’ Returnship program works to inject women back into the workforce who have taken time out, and Deloitte’s lattice initiative acknowledges the many offshoots and sidesteps people take in a modern career.

Any company that uses this excuse for its lack of women in the boardroom should be working hard to retain talented women – or else they’re just grasping at straws.

3. “We hire from our directors’ personal networks and they didn’t know any women.”

Unfortunately this boneheaded response to the lack of women on boards still persists – and this excuse should be frightening. If a board director has no skilled women in his pool of contacts, that should be a red flag. Knight quotes Marcus again:

“It is easy to go with who you know, who’s in your club and who you went to school with. Intuitively, we all feel comfortable with people who are like us. But we need to look at new ways to find different people… When I see an organisation with a board that has a preponderance of people with similar – if not identical – profiles, it makes me wonder about the business as a whole.”

The marketplace is changing – for example, note the recent HSN report that reveals women do more technology purchasing than men – and so are workforces. Purchasing power and top performers are becoming more diverse than ever before. How can companies with boards composed almost entirely of white men expect to compete with companies led by the individuals who reflect today’s diverse reality?

As we get older, the way we think about work and contribution changes. Many women of a certain age are reconsidering earlier paths. After years of paying dues to become a senior executive, partner, or board member in their respective industries, an increasing number are deciding that it’s not what they really want after all. Some are opting to take extended time off for soul-searching, or leaving prestigious jobs to seek something more closely aligned with their current interests and passions.

What’s behind this shift, and why are so many women doing it? As we progress in our careers and encounter political situations, difficult people, and issues we can’t control, our perspectives change. But there’s more to it than that. Clearly part of the issue is that we made our career decisions when we were much younger, before we had solidified our true preferences. Once decades of our career are behind us, we know much better who we are and what we want. Armed with that self-knowledge, many women are asking, now what?

Research has shown that women tend to find an increased sense of personal identity and more clearly define their values in midlife. In doing so, a common value that often emerges is the desire to give back or contribute to a greater good, which is often behind the internal drive to make a midlife career change, says Keith Weber, author of Rethinking Retirement. “This need to give back tends to stay with the individual until it is satisfied, meaning that those who fail to act on it often experience regrets, whereas those who do act on it tend to show fewer regrets and subsequently greater well-being later in life,” explains Weber.

But making such sweeping alterations in your life is not easy. Career coach Dorothy Tannahill Moran explains that with career change, you can’t expect to just grit your teeth and push through your fears. “Most careers you work 40 hours a week or more and if you make a mistake, you’re living the mistake almost daily,” says Moran. “Your career is not a tidy compartment that has no effect on the rest of your life. It’s a huge part of your life and has implications with almost every other part, including financial impact.”

Change also breeds anxiety because we face so many unknowns. We can’t always imagine that a new situation will be better than the one we’re in, says Patti DeNucci, author of  The Intentional Networker. “No matter what the circumstances of change, the same basic fears surface,” says DeNucci. “What will my days be like? Will I enjoy it? Will I be able to attract business and clients I enjoy? Will I be able to make a good living? Will people respect me and will I make a difference? What if no one is interested in what I have to say? The possibility of having to ‘go back’ to something you’ve left behind because you outgrew it or no longer love it is scary.”

To address these questions and more, The Glass Hammer profiled a number of women whose careers began in finance, law, technology, and other industries, but who made a midlife career gear-shift. These women share what they’ve learned firsthand about deciding if you’re ready to switch, overcoming fear of change, and transitioning to a work-life that fits better with age.

From CEO to Realtor

Susan Phillips Bari was the founding president of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), which she led for a decade. She spent the majority of her career in the nonprofit sector, but after resigning as president and CEO of the Leader to Leader Institute in 2010, she decided to make a big change. “I was ready to take control of my time and income,” says Bari. “Frankly, I was tired of having employees.” At heart a marketer, Bari selected real estate. “I figured that if I could raise more than $300 million for nonprofits and political candidates over my career, I could certainly sell something tangible.”

Bari says the hardest thing about the transition has been adjusting to the scale of what she does every day. When she worked at the White House earlier in her career, her actions had a potential impact on millions of people. When she ran WBENC, her actions impacted thousands. Now, her sphere is limited to her clients. “In my current position, I can be a role model but not a leader,” says Bari. “It has been an adjustment.” Bari notes, however, that she has enjoyed the lowered stress of her revised career. “I worry about my own well-being and that of my family, not that of employees,” she says. “My time is my own and while I work hard, frequently putting in long hours and weekends, it is flexible.”

The most important enabler for Bari’s career change was fully understanding the economics of the move. Going from an income of $200K+ to zero, with future income based solely on her own performance, she was prepared to tap savings. She also resolved to stop shopping and trim the home budget until money started flowing.

“Frequently the golden handcuffs of salary, benefits, and perks keep us tied too long to careers that have stopped being fulfilling,” says Bari. “If the finances are not yet in line, make a plan with a timeline and budget that will allow you to research your next career move.”

From Employee to Entrepreneur

Sara Fell’s journey to her current position as founder and CEO of career website FlexJobs has taken her full circle back to doing what she loves. After founding her first company JobDirect at age 21, she later sold the company and joined the traditional workforce as a full-time employee, serving at the director level in two different organizations. But in 2007, she was ready to return to her entrepreneurial roots. She founded FlexJobs while pregnant in response to a frustrating search to find flexible work that would fit with her life and growing family.

“The older you get, the more you understand what you want, and don’t want, out of your career,” says Fell. “As I’ve gotten older, the sense of adventure that I had in my early career has given way to more of a sense of purpose.” Fell is now committed to doing work she feels passionate about, rather than targeting a higher title or paycheck. “Work-life balance has become profoundly more important now that I have a family, whereas in my younger years I didn’t mind having work occasionally dominate my life,” she says.

Though as an employee she had generally positive experiences, Fell admits that several “less than ideal situations” helped to relieve her of rose-colored glasses about working for others, including a married superior making sexual advances toward her, condescension about her age, an extremely difficult boss, and defensive competition from colleagues. Fell’s biggest take-home from these experiences was to rise above them, and find the best and fastest solution possible.

Part of that solution meant becoming her own boss again, despite the fact that she was just starting a family. “I definitely had concerns about whether I’d still be able to be as dedicated as you need to be when starting a company,” says Fell. “There’s always management as my company needs me more or my family needs me more.”

From General Counsel to Community Design—and Back

Not everyone’s career-change leap of faith results in a final destination. Some women we spoke with discovered that they missed the essence of their original path, and hope to return to it.

Henriette Nielsen spent most of her career practicing international law, most recently as General Counsel and EVP at Actavis Group,  where she spent six years with overall legal responsibility for worldwide operations for more than 10,000 employees in over 40 countries. Although she loved her job, she felt a strong sense of wanting to do something “more” and “different,” and resigned her position in early 2011. “I wanted time to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I had no real sense of what such a future would bring,” explains Nielsen.

She started her journey by exploring a business idea with a friend and fellow lawyer, but the pair abandoned the plan six months later. After considering various alternatives, they decided to partner with a third friend on a community design website called OurDesignStories, with a goal of creating products connected to worthy causes where the community is directly involved in the design.

While Nielsen is enjoying the project and feels that it was the right decision to shift gears when she did, she wants to explore a return to international law once the site is successfully up and running. “I would like to get another GC job or similar position, as I miss the challenges of legal work,” she says. She was also surprised to discover during her corporate hiatus that her workplace happiness depends largely on social connection. “I’ve felt a sense of loneliness and isolation following my departure from the bustling activity and constant peer interaction of the big company,” she says. “I just needed to make sure I would not have any regrets later on, and now I know I will not.”

From Financial Analyst to Hair Stylist

After spending nearly 15 years as an analyst at Wells Fargo Bank and on the verge of turning 50, Sarah Kelly decided to do a complete 180. She decided to open a hair salon. “I fell out of love with spreadsheets, so I resigned and went to beauty school,” explains Kelly, who has a degree in economics. Newly armed with a cosmetology license, Kelly opened P3 Hair Design at the start of 2011, financing renovations to an existing salon through savings. With a year in business now under her belt, she is starting to breathe easier about her decision. “I knew I was alright when customers were calling and my website was on the first page of Google,” says Kelly.

Her path has not been without its difficulties. When she started at Wells Fargo, it was before a divorce, and the decision was based largely on needing a steady gig to pay her bills and provide health insurance for her son. But as she moved through the ranks, she discovered that the increased responsibility came hand-in-hand with office politics. “I had reached several impasses with management—I was an outside-the-box thinker in a highly regulated, conservative industry,” says Kelly. “Not a good fit for me.”

She found herself anxious and miserable, and with her son now a teen, wanted to set a better work-life example for him. “I didn’t want him to think that work was something that needed to be endured,” she says. “I wanted him to find his calling, and mine certainly wasn’t banking.” But leaving to start something different had challenges of its own. “Sometimes the hell you know is better than the hell you don’t know,” says Kelly. “Could I really cut hair, could I run a business? I was scared witless about marketing.”

Rather than get discouraged, Kelly used referrals from friends and family, and started learning about social media marketing and SEO to promote her business. She recommends that women who are not in their dream jobs see change as a beginning, not an ending. “If you see yourself at a dead end, you are at a dead end,” says Kelly. “If you can reframe your situation, you can see how you’re benefiting yourself, company, community, or whatever motivates you.”

From Tech Sales to Company Leadership

Prior to launching Impact Instruction Group in 2007, Amy Franko managed a $12 million sales territory for IBM and Lenovo. She says she will never forget the day she resigned from tech sales, walking away from a six-figure income in order to create the new career and life she wanted as a business owner.

“I had plenty of fears—from wondering if I could make it work, to wondering where my next paycheck would come from, to wondering if in a year I’d want my old job back,” she says. “But none of those fears could overshadow the fear that I would look back in 10 years and wish I had taken the chance on myself.”

A key mental shift that Franko made over the course of her career change was to evolve from a “worker bee” into an “executive bee.” “I had to get crystal clear on the executive-level activities that I needed to be doing, versus those activities best suited for a team member or outsourced,” says Franko. “That shift alone has helped me to value my time and become more discerning in what I choose to take on.”

Lisa Adams, founder of Fresh Air Careers, made a similar switch, having spent much of the past two decades in software sales, and later strategic partnerships, for tech companies. She left corporate two years ago to launch her own coaching business. “I work from home, see my kids more, am out of the corporate political structure, and am doing what I love,” says Adams.

Earlier in her career, Adams was driven by money and recognition. But as she moved into her 30s, her priorities began to shift toward more flexibility, less travel, and learning new skills. By her 40s, she felt her career decisions had led her further away from any “sweet spot” in her skills or interests. “I wanted to have a business of my own and looked to the future with a bit of anguish,” Adams says. “My stress was driven by my new desire to find that perfect fit for me.”

As part of her quest, she began working with a career coach, and through the process determined that coaching was what she wanted to do herself. Though the outcome has been to her liking, Adams recommends that women who may be thinking of a career change do a full evaluation of what is spurring it. “Is it really the career or are there other factors involved?” she asks. “I have seen clients blame their career when really it is a lack of balance in all areas of their life.”

Like Franko, Niki Pfeiffer had a background in sales for IBM (as well as IDS Scheer and SAP) before a trio of events led her to leave the tech industry after 12 years to launch her own company, Niki Pfeiffer Designs LLC. The first was having children and wanting a more flexible work schedule; the second was a political situation at work; and the third was the economic downturn, which made her realize that she was vulnerable to a layoff in her current situation. “I did not want to find myself in my 50s and have a layoff happen at a time in my life when it would be much harder to reinvent myself,” says Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer was anxious about whether her family would be able to live on one income, and about starting a business at the same time as being pregnant with her second child. But she was more afraid of finding herself 10 years down the road, having dedicated so much time to work and away from her family only to get laid off. This realization put into perspective that she had to take control of her life if she wanted to achieve her own version of success.

“The experiences we gain at work can help bring to light what we are good at, what fulfills us, and what drains us,” says Pfeiffer. “Once I truly understood this, it was amazing how it simplified the decisions I had to make about the direction of my career.”

From Corporate to Small Business Owner

After being downsized out of her third human resources job, Lynn Sudlow was ready for a change. “I became disenchanted with the focus on needs of management over needs of staff,” says Sudlow. In one example, she was horrified to have a COO state that her ideas were too focused on the “little guy” rather than on the management team. She also grew weary of endless meetings and tiptoeing around difficult managers. “There always seemed to be at least one in every workplace, and somehow they escaped repercussions,” she says.

With a huge leap of faith, Sudlow decided to start her own business. Today she is a certified concierge specialist at the company she founded 12 years ago, The Complete Errand. It took her just over a year to build to full-time income levels, and she says she was fortunate that her husband was employed during this time to provide health benefits.

“I don’t expect to ‘have it all’ now that I no longer have the challenge of balancing children at home with a career,” says Sudlow. “I’m not compelled to meet others’ expectations or ideals unless they’re my clients.”

In her 40s, Marty Stanley also experienced a layoff that opened the door to her current sole proprietorship as owner of Dynamic Dialog. “I’d had it with the corporate world,” she confesses. “I was a vice president at a prominent company, in the position I always wanted, but after a while I thought, ‘This is it? It must be the company.’ So I left and went to a larger international company as a VP in a different industry.”

But changing industries didn’t solve the problem. When Stanley’s position was eliminated in a restructuring at age 49, she was free to start her own business. Now 60, Stanley is an author, speaker, facilitator, and executive coach, and was recently certified to facilitate a program for people over 50 about how to discover and pursue what you want in the next stage of life.

Stanley recommends that women who hope to chart a similar course ensure that they have sufficient financial resources to carry them through for 9 to 12 months.  “Sometimes it’s better to quit a job before you have another if you’re miserable,” says Stanley. “Most people who leave an unfulfilling job wish they’d done it sooner. Even if they don’t have another job, they feel freer and more at peace with themselves.”

From Partner to Trainer

After practicing law for 30 years—24 of them as a partner—Betsy Munnell decided to start her own consulting business, Elizabeth Munnell & Associates, to train law firm associates and law students preparing for practice. The reason? After practicing full-time for decades while raising three children, she could no longer offer the 24/7 responsiveness essential in firms, even after adopting a flex-time schedule and reducing the number of deals she normally managed. As her hours and availability declined, so did Munnell’s access to the most juicy assignments.

“I knew I could never tolerate a permanent role change to counsel or contract attorney, with the inevitable resulting loss of credibility and opportunity,” says Munnell. “Neither flex-time nor part-time work is easy to sustain in a large firm.” Though she knew some type of career change was essential to her future, she had no idea what it should be.

It was Munnell’s investment in her firm’s diversity efforts that ended up holding the key to her next stage of life. Her work promoting the firm’s commitment to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women and minority lawyers began to grow legs of its own. In the year before she withdrew from the firm, she conceived and implemented a curriculum offering practical skills training for women associates. Her firm’s professional development director asked her why she didn’t just jump ship and start her own business advising associates and young partners. Within the next few months, she left her firm to do just that.

“Like many lawyers, I believed for years that I lacked the skills to be successful doing anything else professionally, at least nothing I might enjoy as much,” says Munnell. “It hasn’t been easy, but I have been blissfully engaged, challenged, and entertained in my new career. And I am giving back to my profession at a level that was impossible in private practice.”

From VP to “Boss of Me”

Kim Box had managed every aspect of information technology during her nearly three decades at HP. But two years ago, Box went from being a VP at HP in charge of a global operation with over 10,000 employees and 5,000 contractors in more than 100 locations, to president of her own company, Kim Box Inspires. “I had a very rewarding and successful career at HP,” says Box. “But as I was approaching 50, I gave a lot of thought to what I was doing in my life, and decided I was ready to make a change.”

Some of those changes include writing the book Woven Leadership: The Power of Diversity in Transforming Your Organization for Success, doing keynote speaking and workshops, and leading two start-up corporations. Box also serves on a number of boards, including her regional chapter of the American Red Cross, and became a triathlete.

Box admits that this eclectic mix of businesses and activities has at times been difficult to define. She struggled initially with answering the question, What do you do? “Having a long career in the IT industry, it can sometimes define who you are,” says Box. “I had to comes to terms with letting go of being the ‘executive in charge’ and know that experience will always be a part of me, but it is not who I am.”

Box says it takes some soul searching to unearth what you want to do. She recommends that women take the time to determine the source of their current dissatisfaction before restructuring their lives, to avoid moving from one situation to another only to find that nothing improves. “I got some great advice from a mentor which was, ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen to you? You might have to go back and get a job in your field!’ says Box. “That helped me take the leap.”

Stephanie Corey also used to be an HP executive. She was chief of staff to the general counsel of HP’s legal department at the end of 2010 when she left to start her own home-based business. “When I was in corporate, I was working 65 to 70 hours per week, until a family tragedy made me rethink my priorities,” says Corey. “Going into the office each day became more and more of a chore.”

When Corey first started her career, she wanted to climb the corporate ladder as quickly as possible. She set goals—to make six figures by the time she was 30, to make director by 35—and beat them. But in her mid-30s, her brother-in-law died from cancer, leaving her sister alone with three small children. Corey didn’t realize how much this had affected her until a year or so later.

“I found myself wanting to downsize and be able to spend more time with my family. I just didn’t want to spend my life in a cubicle.” After spending months researching careers that would give her more flexibility, an opportunity presented itself from an unlikely place. Her youngest son had developed a fear of monsters. After weeks of trying to coax him to bed unsuccessfully, she slapped a “Zombie Repellent” label on a bottle of lavender spray and gave it to him, and Miss Stephanie’s Potions was born. Six months later, she left HP to begin product development full-time.

Corey’s initial euphoria at the move turned to panic a few months later, as her savings started to dwindle. “I didn’t realize how much comfort I was getting from having a regular paycheck,” she says. “I was having anxiety attacks that would last days.” Corey continued to plow forward, and is now considering seeking funding to take her business to the next level.

She advises women who are on the fence about whether to stay or go in their current position to consider the advice that she used to give her team at HP every year at review time. “If you want to be here, it has to be because you made the decision to be here—not because of your boss or the company,” she says. “The happiness has to come from you, not what someone else is giving you.”

Members of The Glass Hammer community will know that we hold extremely targeted and specific networking events with panel discussions (and articles) that tackle the toughest topics around career management for women in financial and professional services. This year will be no different as we thunder into 2012 with eight events lined up. We aim to encourage you to be well-equipped to succeed in the world of work and we hope to inform, inspire, and empower you every step of the journey.

We are hosting our first 2012 event on the 6th of February, which is part of our “Managing Identities at Work” series. This pioneering event addresses what it means to be an LGBT woman at work in the financial markets and professional services, and will be held here in NY in February and then in London in June. We will be also exploring what it means to be a multicultural women in the industry in New York in October. This work is an extension of our efforts over the past five years, including discussions and whitepapers around Women in Technology, Senior Women in Investment Management, and other issues like how women negotiate differently than men.

You might ask what are we talking about when we ask our readers to think about managing their “identity.” Most of us don’t get out of bed in the morning and think about ourselves in that way. Personal or social identity, and how we manage it, is not to be confused with personal branding. We have control over how we market ourselves. Managing our identities is different – but critical for success.

Managing Identities

Our “Managing Your Identity at Work” series is about recognizing differences in yourself and others to build better and honest working relationships with your coworkers, bosses, and clients. (This is different from “life-coach” style “being your authentic self” guidelines, which, when misconstrued, can mislead employees fully disclosing activities that don’t necessarily belong in the workplace… and encourage those of us with bold personalities to let rip with stories of our weekend adventures in intricate detail.)

Instead, we are referring to overcoming stereotype threat – and stereotyping is something that we all do (admit it!). Our brains are wired to take in information and organize it a way that makes it easier to analyze quickly. In the workplace, women have to think about how they are perceived in a much more deliberate way than men, since men belong to the group that has always “gone to the office.” As a women, you are likely already dealing with the 1st set of assumptions (which come come from both men AND women) about who you are, how you think, and what you are good at.

Then you may have one or more other outward identities such as being a different ethnicity other than white or a different nationality from the rest of the group (which means a 2nd or 3rd set of assumptions around who you are, what you are good at that you must contend with). Then you have to navigate your path in a way that enables coworkers understand you and your abilities clearly.

Sound familiar? Of course, sometimes it’s hardly noticeable. But other times the onus is on you to educate peers and bosses as you may represent a whole host of misconceptions to them.

For example, if you happen to be LGBT, you have to then experience some level of anxiety around dealing with another set of assumptions that people might have about you. Going back to our upcoming event, our purpose is to help LGBT women leverage all types of networks, find mentors and sponsors, and understand how to connect with senior people in the firm to advance without feeling the need to live with anxiety and hide their personal lives – for instance, by using neutral pronouns when talking about their significant other.

Why it Matters for Change Agents

Being yourself and knowing who are is a crucial part of being a change agent.

Many women say to me that being a woman hasn’t mattered in their career. Those women upon closer inspection have often assimilated to the dominant group’s leadership style.

But women aren’t men and so by trying to take on certain characteristics, they often create a lose/lose situation in which are often ranked as less popular bosses. And by denying that they may have been perceived as “different” at various points in their career, they often forfeit the opportunity to be a good mentor and sponsor to younger women and men.

This analogy can be applied to LGBT employees who feel they have to stay in the closet at work – particularly the senior ones. Believe me, I do understand the risk/reward paradigm of this decision. But if it is approached correctly, the rewards for the individual and their colleagues are great.

If only one group’s “way of being” is valued, then unproductive groupthink can kick in and clients may choose competitors who can better understand and represent that client’s constituency. Firms trying to recruit the best future talent will also struggle if they cannot support the complex and different needs of their employees.

Plus, everyone can benefit from diverse role models, and building critical mass in any group does change perceptions and increase awareness of the issues that group faces. As a result, progressive people in power advocate for all staff – for example, look at the recent success of change-agent catalyzed diversity at companies like Campbell Soup.

We encourage other LGBT individuals (including men) and straight allies of all stripes to join us for our upcoming event! Progressive thinkers welcome!

A company taking a serious interest in appointing more women to its board doesn’t seem as if it could ever be a bad thing, but in corporate America things aren’t always black and white. Women account for half of the U.S. workforce, yet hold only 16 percent of the seats on Fortune 500 boards. So, how is intentionally seeking out women to appoint ever a bad thing? If it leads to tokenism. If a company is only looking to improve its gender diversity appearance, without tapping into the benefits of true diversity, being that sole woman in a sea of men can be lonely and frustrating.

Harriet Green, chief executive of Premier Farnell, recently wrote that corporations need to go beyond tokenism and move towards real acceptance of the value that a diverse mix can bring. “Women don’t want tokenism. We want the opportunity to show what we can do and be measured on our performance,” Green wrote.  Something a CEO told Green also rings true: “One woman on the board is a token, two is a minority; three means you are really getting there.”

The problem is that three women sitting on the board of the same Fortune 500 company is almost unheard of – even in 2012. Some companies really are trying by introducing women and other minorities to the boardroom, and of course, that means starting with one or two diverse individuals. But some boards are just trying to fend off criticism, while hoping to maintain the status quo. What should you do if you realize you were only hired to make a team or board look diverse and your contributions are not being taken seriously?

An Opportunity to Learn & Grow

Professional coach Amber Rosenberg contends that female tokenism is prevalent in the highest levels of corporate America, but out of the hundreds of women she has coached over the past decade, only a handful expressed concerns that they’d been hired or promoted because of their gender.

No matter the reasoning behind the hire, a woman’s presence can prove to be an invaluable advantage to the highest ranks of corporate America, including a female executive or board member’s ability to act as a much-needed role model to more junior female staff members. Rosenberg believes that women should embrace their newly-acquired position of power and view it as an opportunity to grow, learn, and succeed.

“Some token women may feel the need to downplay their visibility, recognition, or success for being seen or labeled as a ‘fraud’ or ‘bitch,’ but a more empowering option is to make the most of the opportunity and actively highlight their visibility and success,” Rosenberg said. “Some colleagues may choose to view them in a certain light, but at the end of the day, you can’t control what other people say or how they act. You can only control your own action and words, so why spend your time and energy worrying about what other people may think of you?”

This biggest personal issue that can result from being a token woman isn’t having to deal with the opinions of others, but rather a depleting sense of your self worth. If you focus too heavily on others viewing you in a negative light or not taking you seriously, you may begin to internalize this and doubt your abilities.

“You have to nip this in the bud. Get to the root of it and figure out what the cost of feeling insecure is. What’s the benefit? Better awareness of insecurity leads to better management of insecurity,” Rosenberg said.

Making the Most of It

Ruth Nemzoff, author and resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center, says she has had plenty of experience as the token woman.  She was the first woman on the board of a bank, the first woman on the board of a college, and the first woman on the industrial development board.

“Absolutely I knew I was a token,” Nemzoff said. “It was the late 1970s. I was a leader in the New Hampshire State Legislature and well known in my community because I had set up programs for persons with retardation, started the women’s movement in southern New Hampshire, and, as much as I hate to admit it, I think my ‘fame’ was due in part to being ‘the doctor’s wife.’”

“When I was asked to be on these boards the implication was that I was asked because I was a woman and they made a big deal about the fact that I was a woman. To be fair, I was also well qualified. If you’re chosen as a token, you can still have the credentials for the position – and I did.”

Sara Morgan, an attorney at Heiting and Irwin, agreed. As Nemzoff said, if you’re appointed to a board or promoted to a position because of your gender, it does not mean you’re not qualified for it. Morgan recommends that women who believe they’re occupying a token position should take advantage of the situation and see it as an opportunity for personal growth.

“Growing up as the girl that played Little League, I learned at a very young age that this is a man’s world, but strife builds character and I’ve spent my life practicing and perfecting what my dad taught me: ‘To play with the boys, you have to be better than the boys,’” Morgan said. “I’ve navigated the waters of both the construction and legal fields, which are traditionally male-dominated and male-managed and speaking up and being persistent are key. Maybe they will never take you seriously, but they will have to hear you.”

Nemzoff would take a slightly different approach: silence … until what she said was sure to carry weight. “My strategy was to listen and then when I finally had something not just good, but brilliant to say, I raised my hand and said it. I think the other board members were so stunned that they listened and after that I did not need to worry,” Nemzoff said.

Just as Morgan learned from her father, Rosenberg agrees that token women will probably have to work twice as hard to be heard. If you feel as if your contributions aren’t being taken seriously, use your communication and interpersonal skills to slowly create allies, one-by-one. Start with the low-hanging fruit, colleagues who are approachable or who you’ve already developed a rapport with, and work your way up from there. It’s not an ideal situation, but if you’re in it, you’ve can strategize to make the most of it.

One of the latest studies to echo the point that women are falling off the management ladder is DDI’s Women Work: The Business Benefits of Closing the Gender Gap, which incorporates responses from 74 countries. The 2011 study found that the number of women in leadership positions declines greatly as you move up the ladder, and that fewer women are reaching even mid-level positions today compared with two years ago. What’s more, a gender gap that starts off relatively nominal (59 percent men versus 41 percent women) increases greatly at mid- and senior-level positions.

Clearly the problem isn’t getting women into a good position for advancement—it’s actually advancing them. While many women start off with a bang in fields like finance and law, by mid-career many veer off the upward trajectory, often by choice. Whether that choice is due to a loss of passion or a shift in priorities, there are steps you can take to stay on track.

Make Your Own Plan, Early

Career coach Jennifer Gresham, CEO of Everyday Bright, LLC, has experienced such a gearshift firsthand, having walked away from an enviable position as assistant chief scientist. “I found I enjoyed my days off much more than the ones spent in the office,” says Gresham. “I just wasn’t passionate about science.” She has also witnessed the same trend with countless clients. “Nearly all the women who come to me have what’s considered to be a ‘great job,’” says Gresham. “They do everything that’s expected of them, and it’s killing them.”

Gresham believes that one of the biggest issues facing career advancement for women today is a dangerous combination of parental and societal expectations for women to be high-achieving, combined with a lack of focused career guidance for young women. This pushes driven, talented women to successfully jump through years of educational hoops and up the first rungs of the ladder. But because these early decisions may have been made without the vote of their own interests and passions, something happens along the way.

“Somewhere in their mid- to late-30s, they realize they’ve been living up to someone else’s definition of success,” says Gresham. “They look successful, but they don’t feel like it. And if they find the courage to switch, many of them start over in new careers, which makes it look like there’s a career advancement problem.”

The solution, suggests Gresham, is for women to begin exploring while still in college how to choose a career they love and can succeed at. Instead of settling for opportunities that happen to come their way and being led by the prevailing winds, they should chart their own path.

“Early on, a parent or a teacher will say, ‘You’d be good at _______,’ and off they go in that direction,” says Gresham. “Sometimes the women knew early on they weren’t heading in the right direction, but figured they’d turn it into a stepping stone. In the meantime, another ‘great opportunity’ comes along they feel they can’t turn down.”

Gresham says many women worry that what they really want to do with their lives is frivolous, believing that pursuit of a prestigious career is the only option. Instead, they must learn not to devalue their own happiness in exchange for impressing everyone around them.

Take a Multi-faceted Approach to “Balance”

We’ve all heard stories of the ubiquitous “women who do it all”—somehow spinning the plates of career and family life in harmony without ever having them hit the ground. What we don’t know from these stories is whether these “superwomen” keep the juggling act going for their whole careers, or if we’re just seeing a smooth-running moment in time.

Women have tried to approach the idea of balance from many angles over the decades, and many high-performing women no longer feel that it’s a realistic or necessary ideal to achieve. (See “Voice of Experience: Elle Kaplan, CEO & Founding Partner, Lexion Capital Management.”) Yet balance is still an expectation and problem to solve for many women who are trying to reach top levels of career success while also managing their personal lives.

Stacy L. Fode, partner at Brown Law Group, says that her colleagues continually tell her that the primary challenge women still face is figuring out how to raise families while successfully practicing law. “There is so much angst and struggle by women attorneys that have children to fit it all in—to have time for their families but also time for their cases, clients, and colleagues,” says Fode. “Unfortunately, the struggle is too much for many women and they leave the profession.”

This observation is reflected in current industry data, which show that almost half of graduating law students are women, yet women comprise less than 20 percent of partners of major law firms nationwide, less than 19 percent of general counsel of Fortune 500 corporations, and only 26 percent of the bench (Commission on Women in the Profession—A Current Glance at Women in the Law 2011).

Fode points out that this personal decision has much larger implications, as it impacts the advancement of women in the legal profession as a whole. “Many of my peers who would have one day become managing partners of firms, judges, or general counsel of corporations have now left the practice of law, leaving a vacuum of powerful female role models,” says Fode.

This reality traces back to balance, which is a multi-faceted problem with no simple solutions for women in any industry. Fode suggests attacking the problem from several different angles—rather than expecting to use a one-size-fits-all approach—by doing the following:

• Design your own program. Start by taking time for self-reflection to determine what “balance” means to you personally. It might mean taking a half-day on Fridays to pick up the kids from school and have family movie night, or taking your daughter to school twice a week and attending a school activity once a month, or pledging to turn off your Blackberry and be fully present with your children when you come home from work.
• Put it into action. Once you decide what balance means to you, make a concrete plan to put your approach into action. Deep reflection can help you determine what you need to be happy, but you might also consider hiring a personal coach to help you with this process.  If you’re not happy with your current situation, take the steps necessary to change it, which will lead to your best and most happy self.
• Become a rainmaker. If you are a rainmaker who brings business into your organization, then you may gain more power to make requests that will support your own work-life balance. Work on developing the skills necessary to become a rainmaker. A coach can often assist in this arena, or find a mentor (within or outside of your organization) who will show you how to develop business. If those options are not available, then attending seminars or reading books on rainmaking can be helpful.
• Stay connected even if you disconnect. If you decide to leave your job but you think you may want to return to the industry in the future, take steps to keep abreast of changes in your industry and to remain a viable candidate. For example, do some contract work, stay active in your local industry association, and take continuing education courses.

The news is getting old, and so is the standard advice. We’ve heard many times, and seen through repeated research, that many women are still not being given the development opportunities they need to rise up the corporate hierarchy. Yet solutions that move beyond the tried and the trite are hard to find.

To get the New Year started right, The Glass Hammer spoke with a diverse group of women in leadership positions in law, technology, and finance—as well as workplace experts in other industries—for practical strategies that you can really use. We asked our participants to address truly progressive solutions to help women put their own “glass hammers” to better use against that stubborn ceiling. Here’s some advice you can really use this year.

Manage Your Career, Not Just Your Job

Being great at your job will get you ahead at work—right? Not necessarily. Some of our panelists say that successful career advancement requires career management, not just job management. In fact, strategic career management needs to be considered part of your job.

“Often, women believe the work will speak for itself; that good work will keep you hired and great work will get you promoted,” says Katie Donovan, teacher and speaker on equal pay and women’s salary negotiations. “When you have this mindset, attention becomes laser-focused on the work itself, and the management of your career gets lost.” Donovan says that men tend to have a better understanding that the work itself is only part of the equation for a strong career.

A 2011 study by Catalyst called The Myth of the Ideal Worker shows that women made the best strides forward when they made their accomplishments known, and that men advanced more by using proactive strategies. Donovan thus recommends that the first step in career management should be to self promote—but in ways that management cares about.

One common error in self-promotion by women is a focus on effort rather than results. Donovan explains this crucial distinction: “You may say to your boss, ‘I worked two weekends this month.’ This statement gets no attention from management. However, if you add a result to the statement, ‘I worked two weekends this month to streamline our XYZ process. And, based on my
projections we should save $ABC,’ you will get the attention of management.”

One step beyond that would be to add a result that specifically ties to your manager’s objectives. For example, says Donavan, if your manager needs to cut costs this quarter, base your projections on cost savings. If your manager’s priority is to shorten product time to market, then state, “I streamlined XYZ process, and based on my projections, the company will save ABC time in manufacturing.”

Donovan also emphasizes the importance of both internal and external networking for successful career management. But she emphasizes that networking no longer needs to mean endless conferences and nights out at seminars. Instead, she suggests that much can now be accomplished online through LinkedIn and Facebook. “It’s empowering to understand how your company fits into the industry, how your skills are in demand, and who you can contact when you are ready or if you are forced to change employers,” says Donovan. “Most of this can be found by engaging online regularly and in person periodically.”

Senior accountant Jaime Campbell agrees that the main challenge to advancement is believing that it comes from working hard and expertise rather than from networking and having an influential advocate in the organization. She believes a related challenge is assuming that we will be recognized for our work without having to ask for—or to create a space for—that recognition to occur. And she has found ways around these challenges in her own career by being open and proactive with her employer.

CPA Campbell took it upon herself to create new opportunities to gain visibility for her employer, launching the firm into the world of social media with the goal of creating an online community for the firm’s clients, potential clients, and professional colleagues. She also created opportunities to be quoted in the media, and expanded her educational seminars to be collaborative and revenue-generating. Meanwhile, she kept the firm’s strategic marketing consultant, as well as the partners, informed about the expanded visibility, working toward producing results from it.

“We discussed specifics about what it will take to advance, and I shared what I am committed to,” says Campbell. “The partners in my firm offered me resources to achieve these goals. Because of this conversation and other actions, they now see me as a potential partner instead of just a number-cruncher.”

Climb the Lattice…Sideways

Over is the new up, says Joanne Cleaver, author of The Career Lattice: How Lateral Move Strategies Can Grow Careers and Companies, to be published in April 2012 by McGraw Professional. The way that careers need to be constructed in the 21^st century is not by going up the ladder in the traditional sense, but by stretching the ladder sideways and making lateral moves, learning new skills, and broadening contacts.

Cleaver says that while the idea of career reinvention sounds great, it’s a reaction, not a plan. What is a plan, she says, is the model of the career lattice, which she describes as continual, incremental change. “Latticing is always adding skills that complement those you already use every day; cycling into assignments that give you new experiences related to those you already handle every day; finding new uses for skills you’ve mastered,” says Cleaver. “Latticing positions you to prepare today for careers of tomorrow that aren’t quite invented yet. But through latticing, you can move into those careers as soon as they emerge.”

But how do you create your own lattice work? Cleaver admits that it’s not always clear. “Career pathing has become opaque, with layoffs, reorganizations, and flattened environments. Even experienced employees are not sure what exact skills and experiences they should pursue to land their next promotion. And most organizations don’t provide much guidance.”

Cleaver’s research has shown that ongoing coaching and career advising is an emerging best practice. Organizations committed to retaining women for the long haul, and at top levels, are putting in place coaching and career-pathing programs. 
“Coaching is especially important for midcareer women, who often ‘self-deselect’ when they observe primarily men at the C-level in their organizations,” says Cleaver. “You can’t be what you can’t see, so many women quietly leave, many to start their own firms.”

Push for an Institutional Approach

There’s only so much that women can do to try to catapult their careers. Another finding of Catalyst’s Myth of the Ideal Worker report is that even when women tried all the strategies they had been told will help them get ahead—using the same tactics as men—they still advanced less than their male counterparts and had slower pay growth. Therefore, as with latticing, it’s up to the companies themselves to meet women halfway.

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2011 found that some organizations are doing a better job than others of getting women into leadership positions—and those organizations have more formal processes in place for talent management.

Jazmine Boatman, PhD, manager of DDI’s Center for Applied Behavioral Research and an author of the study, says the more objective the process is, the more likely women are to succeed on this level playing field. “The fact is, organizations that have formal processes for selection, development, and succession tend to have more women in leadership positions. Coincidence? Probably not,” says Boatman.

There are many institutional problems that prevent women from advancing in the workplace, such as company culture, pay inequities, lack of career customization, and gender stereotyping. The first and most important step is for organizations and institutions to recognize that these problems exist and that they can be solved—but only with the buy-in of the board and administration, says Dr. Linda Brodsky, founder and president of Expediting the Inevitable, an organization that works with women physicians and healthcare organizations to create a more flexible workplace. “The structure of the workplace needs to be overhauled thoughtfully and methodically,” says Brodsky. “It is a top down/bottom up effort. They need to recognize that this situation hits their bottom line.”

Lawyer, consultant, and researcher Cynthia Calvert says that firms don’t intend to make it difficult for women lawyers and most don’t believe that they do, which makes it difficult to implement solutions that will create real change. To crack through the ceiling, she recommends the following:

• Gather objective data that demonstrate the effects of the unexamined gender bias, such as the number of women lawyers on the firm’s largest and most important cases, the average tenure of men and women at the firm, and the number of women on the firm’s executive committee.
• Have a briefing on a management-related topic, such as conducting more effective evaluations, and educate about the effects of unexamined biases.
• Give partners a list of simple, concrete actions they can take to advance women lawyers at the firm, and then hold them accountable in their evaluations or compensation for completing a set number of them. Examples of such actions include taking a woman lawyer to lunch or a bar association event, co-authoring an article with a woman lawyer or helping her get a speaking engagement, introducing a woman lawyer to a potential client or referral source, and attending a CLE seminar about gender bias.

Regardless of industry, Brodsky recommends a quantitative approach, using outcome measures that include economic, satisfaction, and other measures of productivity based on the particular industry. “The barrier to this institutional evaluation is mainly the concern about the risk of litigation or ‘bad press,’” says Brodsky. “However, places like MIT have ‘fixed’ their problem by taking such an institutional approach. So has Deloitte. It can be done.”

In the past, studies have revealed that those with more symmetrical faces are perceived to be more attractive and those considered beautiful or handsome are seen as intelligent and good. Those of course, are just general perceptions, but what happens when your physical appearance actually influences how competent others believe you to be at your job?

A recent controversial study paid for by Procter & Gamble (a manufacturer of popular makeup brands, a fact that should not be overlooked) revealed that wearing makeup increases people’s perceptions of a woman’s likability, her competence, and her trustworthiness.

The study featured 25 female subjects, aged 20 to 50, who were white, African-American, and Hispanic. Each was photographed barefaced and in three looks that researchers called natural, professional, and glamorous. One hundred forty-nine adults (including 61 men) judged the pictures for enough time to make a snap judgment. An additional 119 adults (including 30 men) were given unlimited time to look at the same faces. The participants judged women made up in varying “intensities of luminance contrast,” which means how much their eyes and lips stood out compared to their skin. The results revealed that participants viewed those wearing makeup as more competent than barefaced women, whether they had a quick glance or a longer inspection.

It seems our youth and beauty obsessed culture has reached an all-time low if judgments about attractiveness are spilling over into judgments about competence. But according to Marjorie Jolles, assistant professor of Roosevelt University’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program, this has always been the case.

Minds or Bodies?

According to a NEWSWEEK study that surveyed 202 corporate hiring managers, 57 percent revealed that qualified but unattractive candidates are likely to have a harder time landing a job and more than half of managers surveyed advised spending as much time and money on “making sure they look attractive” as on perfecting a résumé. Sixty-one percent of managers (the majority of which were men) also said it would be advantageous for a woman to wear form-fitting clothing at work. When asked to rank employee attributes in order of importance, managers placed looks above education. Of the nine character traits listed, looks came in third below experience (No. 1) and confidence (No. 2), but above “where a candidate went to school” (No. 4).  One New York recruiter who wanted to remain anonymous said, “This is the new reality of the job market. It’s better to be average and good-looking than brilliant and unattractive.”

If you’re under the impression that this is an issue that will only affect young women in the early stages of their career, think again. A recent profile of 55-year-old Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, began with a critique of her footwear, continued on with a list of her favorite clothing labels, and concluded with the admission that the “most encouraging thing of all” was the fact that Lagarde doesn’t have a personal stylist. No, this was not in a fashion magazine; it originally appeared in The Financial Times. This approach would never be taken when writing about a high profile man for a financial periodical and to add insult to injury, the profile was written by a woman. So, how do we overcome this beauty bias if it’s also being perpetrated by women?

Ever since women entered the workforce in large numbers in the 20^th century, they were held to a certain aesthetic and according to Jolles, to this day, we’re still struggling with the old mind/body dualism where men, primarily those who are white, heterosexual, and middle class, are the mind and women are the body. Because women are relegated to the body, it’s no surprise it’s the domain many of us invest in. After all, there’s a reason Sarah Palin paid her makeup artist more than any member of her staff in her run for the vice presidency.

“There’s no question that women have more power today than ever before, but social mechanisms still entrap them,” Jolles said. “American women occupy a rich cultural spot, one where freedom and constraints constantly co-exist. Take fashion, for example. It’s neither liberating nor oppressive; it’s both. Fashion enables a great deal of choice, but it’s limited. The Procter & Gamble study seems to suggest that women can use their sex appeal to get ahead, but not all bodies are sexually appealing to mainstream society.”

Similarly, one of the biggest problems with the Procter & Gamble study is that not all women feel more confident in makeup and if their competence and job performance is now being based on their appearance, some women may be forced to comply with something that feels completely unnatural to them. As Jolles pointed out, in women’s style there’s the common experience of “that’s so you,” but women can also have the experience of “that’s so not you.” Feeling obligated to wear makeup can be alienating and deciding to deviate from the norm by not wearing it can unfairly single you out.

There is no equivalent of this beauty bias for men. Once while speaking to other female academics, Jolles realized that it’s quite the opposite. In academia especially, if a male professor is particularly unkempt, disheveled, and altogether scattered, this for some reason suggests he’s brilliant. If, on the other hand, a female professor was missing papers and had soup stains on her cardigan, it would be a totally different story.

“The body says too much for women and it doesn’t say as much for men. An ‘ugly,’ out of shape, brilliant woman would be really difficult for most people to compute,” Jolles said.

The Million Dollar Question

How to overcome the beauty bias is the million dollar question. According to Jolles, one way to combat it is to introduce more aesthetic diversity by getting different types of people in positions of power. Theoretically, an aesthetically diverse workforce would lead to more political diversity where more ideologies are permitted. There is a Catch 22, however. Getting to the top usually requires that a person submit to the company culture, which can also mean falling in line with the aesthetics considered to be the norm.

But what if you want to push back against the beauty bias? What if you believe that hyper femininity shouldn’t be a necessity to succeed in the workplace or be seen as the competent woman you are? Throwing your hands up and choosing not to participate may not be the best strategy. This doesn’t mean that the beauty bias isn’t something that warrants anger, but from a strategic standpoint, norms don’t get changed by ignoring them, but by insisting they’re more expansive.

No workplace is free of norms and different workplaces have different standards. But if you find these norms oppressive, you’ll have to challenge them subtlety and thoughtfully by exploiting weak links.

For example, Jolles has a friend who is a female prosecutor and at her firm, women are required to wear skirts and dresses. Women can wear something as ridiculous to work as a long, flowing skirt and flip flops, but a tailored pantsuit would be out of the question. As a way of pushing back, Jolles would recommend showing up in a sundress and flip flops. “The best course of action is political agitation. By showing up in a sundress and flip flops you could show the limitations of the company culture by engaging with it,” Jolles said. Of course, political agitation may not necessarily be the best strategy for keeping your job.

Fighting Looks Discrimination

Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and author of the book, The Beauty Bias, is actually proposing a legal regime in which discrimination on the basis of looks is as serious as discrimination based on gender or race. According to Rhode, discrimination against unattractive women and short men is as widespread as bias based on race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Her research also revealed that the more unattractive you are in America, the more likely you are to receive a longer prison sentence, a lower damage award, a lower salary, and poorer performance reviews.

There are already laws against appearance discrimination in Michigan and six other locales and according to Rhode, this hasn’t resulted in an explosion of frivolous lawsuits. In each jurisdiction, the new laws have generated between zero and nine cases annually and in Michigan, about 30 looks-discrimination suits are filed per year, with only one being litigated annually. Rhodes believes the unworthy cases will be weeded out by the cost and burden of litigation.

When the culture begins to get serious about discriminating based on looks, it will have an impact on discrimination based on gender and race. Jolles makes an important point: discrimination based on gender and race is discriminating based on looks. Cultural ideologies require that women be attractive based on heteronormative standards and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be successful if your look violates unspoken codes of the workplace.

If you want to take Jolles’ advice and push back in a strategic way, you have to remember that there can be negative consequences. These are challenging economic times and if being a “political agitator” puts you at risk of losing your job, you’ll have to decide if it’s that important to you.

“There’s no right path for every woman, it’s just a matter of deciding how much risk you’re willing to take and what you can do to feel more like yourself in the workplace,” Jolles said. “Chances are you’ll find that pushing back isn’t easy, but it’s almost always worth it.”