 can last years. Yet, we all know that people can learn, evolve, and change! It is important to avoid labeling and to give your colleagues the benefit of the doubt. And if you hear labels, be courageous and ask the question as to whether the perception is historically based and/or still relevant? None of us was born perfect!
Being a mentor and/or coach to less experienced colleagues helps drive more women in the field, particularly in leadership roles. I take a few hours a month to coach and mentor other women in my field. It’s a way to help them accelerate growth. And it’s also a way for me to learn their perspective about our profession and understand the challenges they face.
1) it has helped me grow in my professional skill set, and, 2) it has led to several important career moves for me. You have a big leg-up on career moves when there is an existing relationship with one or more folks inside a company. I have found it hard to make time for professional networking because there is too much to do in my day job. But I’ve come to recognize that as a professional, I have to prioritize my professional network because my career longevity depends on it.
One of the things I look for in my teams is safe collaboration. Are ideas flowing freely amongst team-members? Is there healthy discussion and discourse?
Constructive conflict is an important characteristic of a high performing team, as that allows the best ideas to come out and also drives team buy-in. For diverse teams, this type of environment can be hard to establish because of communication and style differences. As women leaders, I believe we have higher awareness of these differences and thus we have the unique ability to better observe, and recognize, opportunities for improvement. My advice to women leaders is to look for the signs of healthy collaboration periodically — and make it a priority! And, when those signs are not there, work with the team to get there. Oftentimes, that involves helping people understand the diverse styles of their team members and giving room and support to those who may not feel as free to share their thoughts and opinions. I have found that keeping a measure on levels of constructive conflict is one way to quickly gauge team health which is fundamental toward achieving high and predictable performance long term.
communication method(s) (meeting, 1:1, word of mouth, chat, email).
In my experience, it is easy to communicate poorly and with insufficient frequency. When that occurs, then you introduce staff concerns, frustration, and rumors around the organization.
I find it very hard to over-communicate. Why? Because teams need way more than most leaders realize. It’s important to keep teams on the same page about many areas — such as vision, current business situation, current project priorities, new staff additions, successes, challenges, as well as sharing accolades.
One of the things I do to make sure there is sufficient communication in the organization is to get regular feedback through informal dialogue and also through anonymous surveys. I try to do that 2–3 times a year.
given me the opportunity to coach and mentor them.
I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by special people that have made me a better professional and human.
One of the things I find most rewarding is to mentor and coach people — many women, and some men. I like to keep in regular touch with those I’ve worked with, helping them to focus on the right things (and weed out the noise), map out a career path, and encourage networking. It is perhaps one of the most rewarding parts of my career to see others grow and in a sense, it’s a way to give back.
One of my favorite quotes is: “Do good things and good things will happen”.
This quote is one that I think about particularly often in tough times. The use of it may not be so obvious, so I’ll explain it here. If actions are made with good intent, something good will come of them — eventually. It’s important, though, to not try to connect the cause directly to a positive effect. Most of the time, life doesn’t work that way. That good thing may be something that comes to fruition many months to several years later. This belief has enabled me to simply focus on doing “good” for the business, for people, and for society. I don’t think or worry about whether I will get something out of it. It makes my own prioritization and decision making incredibly simple. And, I have found it to be a healthy and positive way to think!
Universal life (UL) is one of the most controversial life insurance products. Although some advisors swear by UL as an effective financial planning tool for many clients, others view it as a highly risky product that has potential to go sour, with devastating consequences for clients.
Now, the UL product market is undergoing drastic changes. Sustained low interest rates and changes to the tax rules have forced carriers to raise premiums, tweak product features and, in some cases, withdraw their UL offerings altogether.
The changes have some UL proponents less enthusiastic about the product. However, advisors such as Trevor Parry, president of TRP Strategic Consulting and partner at Pension Acuity Partners in Toronto, say that in some circumstances, UL continues to be a great option for clients.
UL combines permanent life insurance with a tax-sheltered investment account. Unlike whole life (WL) insurance, which has consistent premiums and guaranteed cash value accumulation, UL unbundles the insurance coverage and the investment account, providing clients with flexible premium payments and a variety of investment options.
Recent changes to the exempt test, which governs the amount of tax-exempt cash that clients can hold in permanent life insurance policies, have reduced the amount of tax-exempt investment space within UL policies. The new rules also prevent clients from funding a policy aggressively within the first year or two in which the policy is in force.
In response, life insurers across the country have revamped their UL products to adapt to the new tax framework. The result is fewer UL products on the marketplace as well as fewer features available on the products that remain.
Most insurers have also raised premiums on their UL offerings in recent months, as sustained low interest rates have continued to squeeze these products’ profitability. This builds on a string of price hikes that have driven up the cost of UL considerably in the past few years.
“Pricing, year-after-year, continues to be less competitive,” says Tward. Nonetheless, he says UL is still feasible for some clients looking for permanent life insurance coverage.
Once interest rates rise, Tward adds, insurers will likely gain the flexibility they need to reduce premiums and, potentially, enhance product features.
However, for some advisors, such as Robert Porter, insurance advisor and owner of Crusader Insurance & Financial in Mississauga, Ont., UL is not a product they would consider for their clients — regardless of the price.
Porter says he avoids UL as he’s seen many clients run into problems with the product. Specifically, clients are often not clear on how the product works when they buy it, he says; and in cases in which the investments in the policy don’t perform as expected, the policy can end up lapsing.
As such, Porter prefers products such as WL, which have guarantees.
But when UL is used in the right circumstances, it can be an effective product, says Harold Geller, associate lawyer with law firm McBride Bond Christian LLP in Ottawa. Still, he notes that it’s vital for clients to fully understand how the product works and the risks involved.
Geller has seen a growing amount of litigation activity involving clients who bought UL based on a false impression of how the product works. Many of the problems have stemmed from UL policies with annual renewable term (ART) cost of insurance, in which the premiums increase over time, as opposed to level cost of insurance, in which the premiums remain the same over the life of the policy.
Some clients who bought ART policies in the past were shown illustrations projecting annual returns of 10% or more in the investments in the policy, which could theoretically offset the cost of the increasing premiums over time. When markets didn’t perform that well, though, many of those clients were left without sufficient funds in their policies to pay the premiums and maintain the coverage.
This is the first article in a three-part series on universal life insurance.
Up next: The role for universal life.Crown House offers the best workspace at the heart of Ipswich. The landmark building has been given a new lease of life with a comprehensive refurbishment. CEG (Commercial Estate Group) completed the £2m refurbishment of the reception and common areas, including the provision of an award winning café.
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