By Nicki Gilmour, CEO of The Glass Hammer and Evolved Employer

Last week, I was lucky to attend the 3rd Annual Out on the Street conference, where 300 LGBT executives, along with some leaders who are straight allies, convened at Goldman Sachs. It was an excellent event that gave a platform to some amazing leaders to discuss their views on LGBT equality at work, workplace culture, and their role as allies to the LGBT constituents in their firms.

The work that has been going on in the gender space for women to advance is now almost 20 years old in some firms, and I believe could benefit and learn from the workplace LGBT movement, which is less than 5 years old and is gaining lots of support.

In fact, our research from last year shows that LGBT women are likely to be more active within their firm’s women’s network, rather than their LGBT group, relating most strongly to the challenges of being a woman in a male dominated workplace.

This also resonated at the event, with a heavy majority of attendees being LGBT men. The women’s panel, called “The XX Factor,” reinforced that sexism, overt or otherwise, can stall careers more than any other factor. Kathy Levinson, Managing Director of Golden Seeds who is openly gay, remarked, “The silence can be deafening when I am with gay men, as there is no obligation to be verbal and visible about being LGBT. The discrimination that women feel, by being visible, well, I relate to that more.”

It is evident that the firms that are gaining the most ground have leaders who understand talent and human capital and are striving to create workplaces where everyone can thrive.

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Contributed by Dr. Robyn Odegaard

The idea that women are holding themselves back in the corporate rat race has been getting a lot of press since Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg’s interview with 60-Minutes. While I certainly agree that there is more we as women can do to promote ourselves, we need to do more than acknowledge the problem and say we need to change it. We need to arm women with knowledge and skills so they can become successful early and often. I believe these efforts start with understanding why the problem is so challenging to overcome and what we can really do about it.

There are four underlying issues that hold women back:

• Our “Communication DNA” – Perhaps at the dawn of time when a woman’s best bet for survival was to be fed and protected by someone else it made sense to be cautious about engaging in a disagreement or voicing a dissenting opinion. Are we still being hampered by that history?
• Our “Communication Fingerprint” – Each of us has a unique way we use language, learned first from family members and altered by every new person in our life. How we address or avoid conflict is a product of behaviors learned over the course of our lives. Girls are often not allowed to play the rough and tumble games that teach boys how to assert themselves in a group.
• The “Communication Myth” – Look at almost any LinkedIn profile or resume and you will see everyone believes they are better than average at communication. So clearly any miscommunication “must be the other person’s fault.”
• Girls are taught to be “nice” – A nice girl would never stand up for herself and say something that might sound like she was being confrontational. Sadly, many feel it is better to complain behind someone’s back or say “I told you so” after the decision has been made and failed. Logically, we know this way of thinking only leads to workplace drama and office politics but the drive to be “nice” is too strong.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

As more and more investors take notice of research showing the outsized returns that women produce in the alternative investments industry, pension funds are becoming the source of a growing call for diversity. Investors want plans to better reflect the diversity of their constituency, and they are keen to take advantage of the outperformance of women managers compared to their male counterparts. In some states, this has led to an explicit or implied preference for women or minority owned or managed asset management firms, known as emerging manager mandates.

The move toward emerging manager mandates was discussed in Rothstein Kass’s recent report, “Women in Alternative Investments: Building Momentum in 2013 and Beyond.” The authors, Meredith Jones, Camille Asaro, Kelly Easterling, write that, although they are still somewhat rare, diversity guidelines are increasingly present at funds in some states. They write, “This is no doubt due to the fact that funds of funds can offer large pensions a way to achieve a meaningful investment that ‘moves the dial’ within their portfolio, without extensive due diligence on a host of single manager fund products.”

That’s not to say that the focus on emerging managers is new. Renae Griffin, Founder and CEO of RG & Associates, recalls the term from her days working in investor marketing and relations. “This term was being used in the early ‘90s,” she explained. “At first it referred to minority and women fund managers only, but the terms was expanded to include small managers.” Today, RG & Associates and others are beginning to refer to emerging managers as “diverse and small managers”

“The investment world is looking at the demographic shifts taking place domestically and ways to capitalize on it. We benefit by having diverse thought and diverse experiences that come from having more minority, women, and niche players in the industry,” Griffin continued. “There’s also a nimbleness in smaller firms’ expertise.”

But, she says, firms shouldn’t be deterred by the word “emerging.” She explained, “Just because we use the term ‘emerging,’ it doesn’t necessarily mean they are new to the industry. Many of them have left larger firms and have years and years of experience managing billion dollar funds. They are the hidden talent that a lot of institutional investors are looking to attract and dispose of to reap those alpha generating rewards.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In a recent article in The Atlantic, writer Emily Esfahani Smith attempts to argue that ambition and relationships are mutually exclusive. She writes:

“The conflict between career ambition and relationships lies at the heart of many of our current cultural debates, including the ones sparked by high-powered women like Sheryl Sandberg and Anne Marie Slaughter. Ambition drives people forward; relationships and community, by imposing limits, hold people back. Which is more important?”

The notion that people can’t have a rewarding career and meaningful personal relationships is absurd. Certainly, there will always be choices to make when it comes to career advancement and personal commitments – but having those choices is what makes life worth living.

Smith goes on to write that people who really care about their relationships would be wise to give up ambitious dreams, and that people who pursue their ambitions are unhappy, destructive, and live shorter lives. She’s wrong. All in all, she attempts to use an erroneous and misleading argument to shame those who would pursue ambitious goals. In fact, the very study Smith cites to “prove” her argument says quite the opposite – people who are ambitious tend to be a little more satisfied in life and live longer.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Maureen L. Beshar, Managing Director and Head of Institutional Sales and Consultant Relations at ClearBridge Investments, believes strongly in the importance of building self confidence.

She said, “For women in any business – but especially a male dominated business like this – just believe in yourself. Your talents and qualifications are the reason you are sitting in the seat. It’s because of what you offer.”

Having spent three decades in the investment business, Beshar has the experience to know what propels women to the top. “I think women don’t always have the same amount of confidence as our male counterparts. We need to value ourselves more than others value us. That way we can push things forward.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last month the Barnard Center for Research on Women published a report on the future of online feminism. The paper, “#FemFuture: Online Revolution,” is written by Courtney Martin and Vanessa Valenti, and discusses the opportunities that the internet is providing for people working toward gender equality. It also discusses the challenge that exists in building momentum for a movement driven by virtual relationships.

While the internet has provided a voice and a platform for people who advocate for equality, it has also created more decentralization within the movement. Martin and Valenti believe more strategic collaboration will help propel feminism forward, and strengthen the discussion. In her introduction, Martin writes:

“Forging partnerships between feminists – online and off, younger and older, poor and wealthy, organizing at the grassroots and strategizing at the treetops – will have far-reaching consequences. It will foster the formation of new connections between grassroots advocacy and service organizations, educational institutions, coalitions, unions, convenings, conferences, legacy media, policy makers, politicians, entrepreneurs, etc. Online feminism has the capacity to be like the nervous system of this modern day feminist body politic.”

They also discuss the value of partnering with leaders in the business space. Developing institutional know-how and business acumen, they reason, will help feminists create meaningful and long-lasting change.

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By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

In a survey conducted at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) from 2008 to 2011 and funded through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) ADVANCE program, female faculty indicated more stress and less satisfaction with work-life balance than their male colleagues.

Women were more likely to forego personal activities for professional responsibilities (66 percent of women compared to 47 percent of men), but also felt more strongly that their career had been slowed by personal responsibilities (50 percent of women compared to 23 percent of men). With respect to their time distribution at work, 50 percent of women respondents were dissatisfied compared to 32 percent of men. What’s more, the data from the self-study revealed that women at RIT are less successful than men in obtaining more advantageous starting packages, assignments, compensation, and work plans.

The goal of ADVANCE is to change these disappointing statistics, in part by working toward developing and implementing strategies to promote gender equity in academic STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) positions. Projects funded through ADVANCE promote systemic changes in academic settings to increase the representation of women in STEM and enhance career advancement. Since 2001, the NSF has invested over $130 million to support ADVANCE projects like the survey.

“The RIT study documents important elements of the STEM work environment,” says Beth Mitchneck, program director of ADVANCE at the National Science Foundation. “While some findings may be specific to academic settings, many stressors and areas of dissatisfaction transcend the work environment. Studies such as this provide at least a starting point for conversations about gender equity and work satisfaction throughout STEM and points of comparison for the STEM labor force in private industry and other settings.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I am very concerned and alarmed at issues of financial integrity,” began Ranji Nagaswami, former Chief Investment Advisor to Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York when asked about what institutional investors see as the important issues facing the buy-side.

Nagaswami spent over two decades successfully climbing the ranks of the investment management industry in the private sector. Then, in 2010, she took a job with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in the City of New York (NYC), where she would work on solutions to one of the administration’s biggest challenges: pension funding and managing investment risks of the NYC Retirement Systems’ $120 Billion plus in pension assets.

She was tasked with illuminating the administration and NYC Pension Board’s understanding of the drivers of the current pension crisis and successfully persuaded various stakeholders (with contentious mutual relationships to say the least), to restructure New York’s pension investments policy with an eye toward better balancing the long term risks. Having seen the buy-side from the unique vantage points of a manager and an institutional investor, she sees the need to change the tone of leadership in the investment industry as a whole as critical to furthering the interests of beneficiaries and shareholders – who, she says, “after all we are all in the industry to serve.”

“For over a decade now there have been deep issues surrounding our conduct as investment and financial services professionals. It is not just the conduct of the few who epitomized the worst behaviors during the accounting / insider trading / mortgage lending / leverage induced scandals, I am talking about all investors – research analysts, portfolio managers and financial advisors who bear our share of responsibility through our collective complacency in failing to enforce higher standards of due diligence and fiduciary behavior,” Nagaswami said. “We need to set a higher bar, a far more robust code of conduct for the asset management industry that sees improving end-investor outcomes as its ultimate mission. But to build a higher ethical culture we need leaders in the asset management industry who hold themselves accountable on this dimension. Thinking through standards to create accountability is deeply linked to the future of finance.”

“We need leaders who have the right values and prioritize integrity over asset gathering and profits.”

She added, “These may sound like easily said platitudes, but to many thoughtful investors it is very real and goes to the core of rebuilding confidence in the US financial system.” Nagaswami sits on the CFA Institute’s Asset Manager Code of Conduct Committee, but also uses her many public speaking opportunities to drive this issue home.

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Contributed by Linda Galindo

High performing, accountable job candidates want to join high performing, accountable organizations. When the level of personal accountability one holds is a mismatch with the organization, conflict and a plan to leave shortly after joining is not far behind.

Am I going to join a company that utilizes my work style orientation that places a high value on personal accountability or is it going to be a struggle from the day I say yes and take the job? Here are 5 things to look for when joining a company to decide if the company is accountable.

1. Definition of Success for the role you are accepting.
Is the organization clear on their definition of success for the role? Are you? In order to ensure success, success has to be defined. A pledge of support for your success going into a position is rhetoric unless it is backed by a meeting of the minds on what that means. For example, “Success is bringing standardization to common practices in the department in order to realize economic efficiencies that the organization needs.” If your boss-to-be agrees to that definition of success but does not reveal the “as long as” they have in mind, you are likely doomed. Their point of view may be “Yes, success is standardizing practices as long as you accommodate our high performer’s exception to skip the documentation requirement, or work around the underperformer who is 2 years from retirement.”

2. The organization has a role clarity process.
What you are told in the interview and subsequently sign up for may change dramatically as soon as day one on the job! It is that single line at the bottom of the job description that Human Resources hands you to sign that includes “…and other duties as assigned.” Is there a monthly meeting for the first six months to affirm role clarity? How often do you hear that “what was described in the interview is not what is happening on the job?” Although well intentioned, efforts to paint a clear picture going in does not mean things won’t change as new needs pop up. High performers know it is vital to respond to stay competitive, but leaving on-going role clarity untended is a huge mistake. Without a commitment to on-going role clarity updates, it is unlikely the organization retains accountable, high-performers as their role becomes doing the work of underperformers who are not held accountable to their role clarity.

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By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

At the end of 2011, we reported on the launch of a new statewide mentorship program in New York: the Gillibrand Women’s Mentoring Initiative. At that time, New York’s U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced a partnership with the Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) and the Partnership for New York City. The goal: to find 100 senior executives who were willing to share their time and expertise with 100 up-and-coming women professionals.

The mission was accomplished, and in 2012, the first wave of Gillibrand’s mentor/mentee pairs met quarterly, checking in with the Partnership along the way to report on progress. Among the 200 participants were mentor Lori Lesser, a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, and mentee S. Jeanine Conley, the Hiring Partner for BakerHostetler’s summer and fall recruitment and a member of the firm’s litigation group.

Lesser and Conley participated in The Glass Hammer’s 2011 article, New Women’s Mentoring Initiative Kicks Off Across New York, and when we last connected with them, they had just met for their first mentorship breakfast powwow. “It was more than I even expected after only our initial meeting,” Conley told us at the time.

A year later, as CUP reviews nominations for the second class of leaders to participate in the initiative, we checked in with Lesser and Conley to find out how their mentoring experience unfolded and what they gained through the initiative.

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