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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
What if your company could gain a greater profit share of the market simply by promoting more women into its senior management team? Sounds like a no-brainer, and despite nearly every study done in the past three decades proving companies with women leaders deliver superior performance, the number of women in the C-suites of companies all over the world is noticeably low. Results at the Top is written for the men who know the value female leaders bring to the table and need a tangible way to get them there. Whether you're building your leadership team from scratch or trying to transform long-established norms for a competitive advantage today, the practical guidance inside wastes no space with blame for the current state of women leaders and goes straight to the immediate steps organizations can take to change it. It gives you everything you need to both create the internal systems for promoting gender diversity on every step of the career ladder and motivating employees to celebrate its shared, bottom-line benefits. Up-to-date viewpoints don't confuse equal with same and go in-depth into the scientific differences between men and women that can complement each other to produce higher performing teams. Along with neurological variances, there are societal behaviors men and women need to recognize and substitute with more productive and advantageous ones. Through eye-opening research and illustrative examples from the real world, both sexes gain a deeper understanding of how we got here and the pioneering systems companies in the highest echelons of their industries are using to evolve leadership development all the way to the top. This everyday guidebook will immediately change the way you approach work with: * A powerful new evaluation method for assessing the source of gender diversity in a company's leadership * Concrete strategies men can use to champion greater gender diversity along with ways men and women can improve collaboration in order to run better organizations * Focused coverage on addressing gender diversity with Millennials--and don't be surprised when you find they're not so different The most satisfying part of Results at the Top is watching your company's performance soar as gender bias disappears.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BARBARA ANNIS
RICHARD NESBITT
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: YOUR WAKE‐UP CALL
DIVERSITY AT THE TOP: CORRELATES WITH BETTER PERFORMANCE
HOW WE CAME TOGETHER
BARBARA'S WAKE‐UP CALL
WHEN I BECAME A REAL MANAGER OF PEOPLE
THE DIVERSITY MONEY PIT
WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
BRUSHING YOUR HORSE
LACK OF “GENDER SUCCESS” IS COSTLY
THIS IS YOUR TOOLKIT
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 2: THE BUSINESS CASE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN
“LET'S DO IT!”
DEFINING SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE
ADDING WOMEN TO BOARDS
THE REASON FOR THE IMPROVEMENT IN FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
THE FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP
“VALUES DON'T MATTER IF WE'RE NOT MAKING THE NUMBERS”
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 3: ASCENT OF NEUROSCIENCE
EQUAL DOES NOT MEAN THE SAME!
THE ASCENT OF NEUROSCIENCE
THE DOMINO EFFECT
BELL CURVE OF GENDER TENDENCIES
THE ABILITY TO PEER MORE DEEPLY
SEX DIFFERENCES IN BRAIN STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
SEX DIFFERENCES IN HORMONAL COMPOSITION
THE BREAKTHROUGH THAT KNOWLEDGE BRINGS
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 4: ASCENT OF WOMEN
THE FIRST LONG STEP
WOMEN JOINING BUSINESS CLUBS
CULTURES CLINGING TO TRADITION
THE ASCENT OF WOMEN
AN ECONOMIC NECESSITY VERSUS A CHOICE
AREAS WHERE GLASS CEILINGS STILL EXIST
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 5: ASCENT OF MEN
MEN ACCELERATING CHANGE
THE EVOLUTION OF AN ATTITUDE
EVOLUTION IN OUR THINKING
ARE WE STALLED OR ADVANCING?
THE “AHA” MOMENT
BREAKING THE MOLD
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 6: MILLENNIALS: FACTS AND FICTIONS
IT'S NOT A GENERATIONAL ISSUE
HOW MUCH THE SAME WE REALLY ARE
WHY WOMEN ARE NEEDED IN THE TECH INDUSTRY
IT'S NOT A GENERATIONAL ISSUE
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 7: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN'T
WE'RE OVER THE TIPPING POINT
HOW TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE CHANGE
WHAT WORKS AND WHY
WHAT DOESN'T WORK AND WHY
OTHER BEST PRACTICES
CRITICAL MASS AND CRITICAL MINDSET
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 8: THE ROLE OF THE BOARD
LACK OF MENTORING
STEREOTYPES IN BUSINESS
RICHARD'S STORY: BOARDS IN THE 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THEIR GENDER COMPOSITION
THE QUOTA EXPERIENCE IN NORWAY
PICKING THE BEST CANDIDATE REMAINS VITAL TO SUCCESS
IT MAY ALL START WITH THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
HUMANS FOLLOW ROLE MODELS
ROLE MODELS ARE LEADERS
WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN MANAGEMENT AND ON BOARDS
MEN'S BELIEFS AND BEHAVIORS ARE CHANGING…SLOWLY
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 9: MEASURING COMMITMENT
A GENERAL MODEL FOR GENDER DIVERSITY IN MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS (MIS)
DEFINING A MODEL FOR GENDER DIVERSITY
GENDER DIVERSITY MODEL FOR MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (MIS)
CONSTRUCTING A NEW GENDER PROPENSITY INDEX
©
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 10: HOW TO RID THE PLUMBING OF BIAS
GENDER PARITY IN NEW GRADUATES
SOURCING, JOB DESCRIPTIONS, AND INTERVIEWING
NINE LEVERS FOR CREATING GENDER‐INTELLIGENT ORGANIZATIONS
AREAS WHERE SYSTEMIC BIASES MAY FORM
JUST GO IN THERE
HAVING A HARD TIME GETTING WOMEN TO JOIN
YOU'RE CREATING A LOSE‐LOSE SCENARIO
FIXING THE PLUMBING
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 11: WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
HOW ENGAGING ARE YOUR ENGAGEMENT SURVEYS?
BRUSHING THE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY HORSE
“ARE WE BEING GENDER INTELLIGENT ABOUT THIS?”
CHALLENGING TRADITION
FEMININE VALUES IN FINANCIAL SERVICES
WHY DOES GENDER SUCCESS ELUDE SO MANY BUSINESSES?
WHAT IF WE DO NOT ACT?
STEPS TO GENDER SUCCESS
THE LONG ASCENT
ENDNOTES
INDEX
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
List of Illustrations
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Total of Sex‐Related Charges, 1997–2015
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 The Bell Curve of Gender Tendencies
Figure 3.2 The Brain at Rest
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Trends in Undergraduate Enrollment by Gender, 1990–2023
Figure 4.2 Women as a Percentage of University Graduates—Americas and Canada
Figure 4.3 Women as Percentage of Graduates, by Discipline
Figure 4.4 Women as a Percentage of University Graduates—Europe
Figure 4.5 Women as a Percentage of University Graduates—Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Figure 4.6 Women as a Percentage of University Graduates—Asia and Pacific
Figure 4.7 Percentage of Medical Degrees Attained by Women, 1990–2014
Figure 4.8 Women as a Percentage of JD Enrollment and as Partners in Law Firms, 1990–2015
Figure 4.9 Percentage of Bachelor's Degrees in Engineering Awarded to Women, 1985–2013
Figure 4.10 Percentage of Bachelor's Degrees in Computer Science Awarded to Women, 1985–2013
Figure 4.11 Percentage of Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Business Awarded to Women, 1985–2013
Figure 4.12 Women as a Percentage of Employees in the Global Financial Services Industry
Figure 4.13 Percentage of Women in Finance in the S&P 500, 2014
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Three Types of Male Leaders and Their Attitudes Toward Advancing Women in Leadership
Figure 5.2 Ten Percent More Male Leaders Who Get It and Are Acting on It
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Millenials Are the Most Educated Generation to Date
Chapter 08
Figure 8.1 Boards of Directors' Gender Composition during the 2008 Credit Crisis
Figure 8.2 Top Management Teams as a Source for Board Members
Figure 8.3 Women as a Percentage of Corporate Leadership
Chapter 09
Figure 9.1 Gender Diversity Index—Model and Analytics
Figure 9.2 Variables to Be Disclosed/Measured
Figure 9.3 Women's Roles in Senior Management
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Gender Tendencies During the Interview Process
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
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BARBARA ANNIS | RICHARD NESBITT
Results at the Top
USING GENDER INTELLIGENCETO CREATEBREAKTHROUGH GROWTH
Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Annis and Richard Nesbitt. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New JerseyPublished simultaneously in Canada
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 978-1-119-38408-3 (Hardcover)ISBN 978-1-119-38402-1 (ePDF)ISBN 978-1-119-38407-6 (ePub)
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © peshkov/Getty Images
Barbara Annis:
To my husband, Paul Reed Currie, whose amazing support, love, and integrity I always admire and treasure. And to my wonderful children, Lauren, Sasha, Stéphane, and Christian; my bonus children, Zachary, Kelly, and Jeremy; and my grandchildren, Colin, Cameron, Alaia, Brydan, Jake, Riley, and Grayson.
Richard Nesbitt:
It is with deep gratitude and the utmost appreciation that I dedicate this book to the many courageous and honorable women and men whom I have had the privilege of working, learning, and growing with throughout my career. Their knowledge, integrity, and perseverance have taught me so much for which I am eternally grateful. I would like to thank my co‐author Barbara Annis, who I have known, worked with, and respected for over two decades, for helping us achieve our vision of creating a book that speaks to men and women.
I am exceedingly thankful to my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, and uncles for their many sage and critical life lessons taught to me during my developing years on the farm.
I dedicate this book to my exceptional daughters, Olivia and Lillian, who continue to educate and inspire me each day with their wisdom and joie de vivre. You are both a constant source of joy, wonder, pride, and inspiration.
And I am most grateful to my wife and biggest fan, Lucy, my trusted advisor and life partner of more than thirty‐four years. Her encouragement, suggestions, guidance, and enthusiasm have kept me motivated and encouraged throughout the writing of this book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank John Fayad, our senior editor for Results at the Top. This book is only possible through his diligent efforts and valuable advice over many months. He is a true advocate for inclusion and diversity who is making it happen in business every day.
BARBARA ANNIS
I wish to acknowledge the many men and women with whom I have worked closely over the years for their deep commitment to creating a more gender‐intelligent world for us, for our children, and for each succeeding generation.
My deepest appreciation to the women leaders and staff at the Women's Leadership Board, Harvard Kennedy School. I am honored to partner with you in your commitment to creating a world where men and women are equally valued and respected in all aspects of economic, political, and social life.
I also wish to recognize the thousands of men and women whom I have met over the years, at all levels of leadership across the globe, who want nothing more than to find ways to work together more inclusively and productively and to find greater success and satisfaction in their careers and in their personal lives.
Finally, I must recognize the organizations, both past and present, with which I have worked so closely for their amazing, dedicated men and women in positions of leadership creating cultures of Gender Intelligence.
RICHARD NESBITT
My thanks go out to those who read earlier drafts of this book and provided their valuable comments. I would also like to thank my fellow professors at Rotman who gave me advice and helped me head in the right direction. In particular, I would like to thank Tiff Macklem, dean of the Rotman School of Management, and Mihnea Moldoveanu, vice dean, Rotman School of Management, for their support and guidance.
Important parts of my education in diversity have come from my work with Women in Capital Markets. This organization continues to do tremendous work in improving our financial markets through greater inclusion.
I would also like to thank my assistant, Bernadette Fernandes, who has supported me for many years in my various projects, including Results at the Top.
My gratitude to all of the contributors, who are too numerous to name. They have provided their stories from their real‐world experience for inclusion in our book. From them we are able to learn about what works and what doesn't work. They are role models for all of us who seek to improve our organizations. Speaking of role models, I wish to acknowledge the visionary male leaders who have recognized the economic power of men and women leading together, and who are actively involved in advancing women in leadership.
INTRODUCTION
For decades, the burden for achieving parity in leadership, whether in business, education, or government, has been placed squarely, and wrongly, on the shoulders of women alone. There are few if any books written specifically to men on gender diversity and what men can and should do to support and champion the advancement of women into leadership roles.
Nevertheless, we see an entirely different phenomenon that's taking place today and coming at us at a high rate of speed. We see an expanding realization on the part of men—in pockets all over the globe—that sharing leadership with women produces superior performance in organizations. Virtually every financial study conducted since the 1980s on the financial performance of companies that have women on their boards and their executive teams have proven it to be true!
Male leaders know the value. What they don't know is how to engage and be supportive in advancing women. Results at the Top is the first book of its kind written primarily—though not exclusively—for men, showing them exactly why organizational performance is better and how to get on board.
Results at the Top will be of high interest to women as well, for by speaking to men and making known their thoughts and the reasons for their behaviors, we reveal to women how to best communicate and interact with men in the workplace, and in many other aspects of life.
We're embarking on a new level of achievement in the pursuit of women in leadership, and this book is recognition of that achievement and points directly to the successes gained.
Our title, Results at the Top, speaks to that success and the intersection of the three transformational events happening in countries across the globe that are bringing about that acknowledgment and success. These events are culminating in the rise of companies' Gender Intelligence quotient, shareholder value, and the broader measures of superior corporate performance.
The ascent of neuroscience
and our expanding awareness of the distinct yet complementary natures of men and women
The ascent of women
in dominating education and moving into positions of leadership
The ascent of men
in their recognition of and advocacy for women in leadership
This book fixes its sights on these three elements, with particular focus on the ascent of men, and spotlights trends in their attitudes and behaviors as well as their successes in advancing women in the organizations that they lead. It's also a book in which men can discover more about themselves, how they tick, and why. Unlike so many books and articles written about men, we are not here to place blame, but to understand men's strengths and contributions and how they differ from those of women.
Nor do we address issues such as how women should conduct themselves to be most effective in today's companies. Previous books on this and related topics are plentiful and are usually addressed only to women, or to some vague blend of men and women.
Today, women equal or outnumber men in universities, law schools, and medical schools, and for the first time in the United States, in 2009 women received a greater percentage of doctorate degrees. They've represented nearly half the workforce since the 1980s and influence almost 80 percent of consumer purchases globally. They are joining the ranks of business entrepreneurs in increasing numbers—on average, running more financially successful small businesses than their male entrepreneur counterparts.
But there is one outpost where women are a distinct minority, and not by their own choice—in the senior leadership teams and boards of public corporations. Despite the acclaim given to a few high‐profile female CEOs, around 90 percent of companies today are still led by men.
The discrepancy has not gone unnoticed. Gender diversity is one of the hottest topics in business today. Why are women not advancing at the pace they would like? Why do regulators feel it necessary to mandate gender diversity in public companies? Why, after forty years of mandates, are women still only one out of five on executive teams and one out of ten as CEOs?
Results at the Top brings to business leaders—male leaders—a “dollars and cents” rationale and proven reasons to change their attitudes. Our book delivers proof of a virtually universal relationship between the presence of women on boards and in senior management teams and improved corporate performance. And it proposes a series of concrete steps that corporations can and should take to promote greater gender diversity at each stage of the career ladder.
We offer groundbreaking insights into what will motivate companies to hire more women into senior management and appoint them to more board positions. We examine the relationship between the number of women on a board of a company and the number of women on the top management team of that company, advancing a new method of evaluating diversity in a company's leadership called the Gender Propensity Index©, or GPI©.
Do a company's policies and leadership behaviors indicate the likelihood of new women being added to management and boards? Will this lead to superior performance? Many stakeholders want to know the answers to these questions, from the companies themselves to their employees, their new hires, and their shareholders. It will also be of interest to regulators and other government agencies.
Results at the Top discusses how men should respond to these challenges and how men and women can work together to achieve the common goal of running better organizations. We address the importance of measurement and action to realize enhanced performance through gender diversity and how organizations should rid their “plumbing” of bias as a first and most critical step.
We're on the crest of this tidal wave and beginning to see the effects of gender‐balanced leadership on the productivity and financial performance of companies. In time, this wave will carry over onto the global economy and into governments around the world.
Countries are beginning to realize and embrace, as equals, their greatest undervalued and underdeveloped economic resource—the female half of the population. We believe the engagement of women in developing countries for their balanced voice in business and government will be one of the greatest breakthroughs for humankind in the twenty‐first century.
The solution right under our noses is in bringing the best brains of both men and women together to create a better, more stable world—both economically and socially. Imagine how different our world would be right now if women had been at the table just in the last fifty years.
Our hope is that, with our book, we can encourage and influence just 10 percent of the male leadership in companies around the world and accelerate the progress that's already been made. Our hope is that Results at the Top will be a wake‐up call for more men to get on board and give rise to an even more powerful movement forward.
We believe that if we can get this right, we could achieve real progress in a single generation.
Chapter 1YOUR WAKE‐UP CALL
Let's put it on the table right at the onset. We believe—and what's more, we believe we can prove—that if you want your business to perform at its peak, you must hire and promote women alongside men into management and elect them to your board of directors.
How we can possibly be doing the best for our businesses if we hire and promote from only one‐half of the population? This question has been out there forever, including back when women were not even considered full citizens. Asking this question has not led to the experience that most women and many men want, which is a full place for women alongside men in management and on boards. Other authors have tried to argue that women have superior skills (at least in certain areas) and this is the reason they should succeed in business. How is that argument working for change? Not so well.
We need to make a case that is provable based on evidence from an overwhelming number of experts in the field—a case that matters to those in positions of power. Who are they? Why—men, of course. This is the challenge that many who have tried to create change have been unable to resolve.
DIVERSITY AT THE TOP: CORRELATES WITH BETTER PERFORMANCE
For over twenty years, a growing body of research has demonstrated that companies that embrace diversity in general—and gender diversity at the highest company levels in particular—enjoy superior corporate performance. The evidence is globally relevant. It applies as much to China as to the United States and as much to Canada as to the United Kingdom or any other country.
Acting to achieve optimal corporate performance, or as some statutes require, “acting in the best interests of the corporation,” requires boards and management to adjust the balance in their firm to achieve the right mix of men and women in leadership roles.
However, some believe progress by corporations in this area has stalled of late. Despite the acclaim given to a few high‐profile female CEOs, progress in promoting women to senior management roles has slowed in mature economies. Writing recently in The New York Times, Philip N. Cohen noted that, “The movement toward equality stopped [in 1994] and it hasn't changed much since.”1
Men still dominate senior management and boards, with women representing a little more than a token presence. There is no question that women feel “left out” and frustrated, as is suggested by the title of a Harvard Business Review article, “Women in Management: Delusion of Progress.”2
However, if you consider that the aim is a fundamental change in the way men and women interact with each other at work, we can see progress continuing globally with distinct regional dynamics.
That's the bottom line of our book. And unlike other books written today on the topic of advancing women, this is not another “your journey to diversity” book. We're offering more than that. We know what works and we're going to show you how to do it. We're going to share breakthrough insights, pinpoint the specific areas where you need to focus your attention, and give you the tools to make things happen.
This book is unique in another way as well. There are few if any books on gender diversity targeted specifically to men and what men can and should do to support and champion the advancement of women. For decades, the burden for achieving parity in leadership, whether in business, education, or government, has been placed squarely, and wrongly, on the shoulders of women alone.
That's changing. We see a growing realization on the part of male leaders all over the globe that women in balanced leadership with men leads to a bigger bottom line. These leaders are personally getting involved and seeing that their managers at all levels are walking the talk as well.
Men in positions of power want to see more women on their executive teams and on their boards. Many confess, though, that they don't know what to do to make that happen. Many admit that they didn't know that they personally needed to be involved. They also admitted that they are seldom if ever invited to participate in gender diversity programs. But when we share with them the contents of this book, they're totally receptive, supportive, and enthusiastic about getting involved.
Men, you are the last piece of the puzzle in this quest for the advancement of women, and this is your one‐of‐a‐kind guidebook in how to get personally involved and what specifically you can do.
Women, you will find Results at the Top of huge value as well for its refreshingly different insights into why men on executive teams and boards—well, men in general—think and act as they do. You're going to learn a lot about yourselves as well in the chapters that follow.
Most important, it will help women leaders in Human Resources and Diversity & Inclusion to know where and how we're suggesting men get involved. You may not be aware of the critical mass of men who want to be partners in this. So, we're inviting you to invite them!
“Speaking of being partners in this, Richard, we've both been at this for quite a few years now. Let's tell our readers what first brought us together.”
“I remember it well, Barbara. I was working inside, in banking, trying to effect change, while you were working outside, bringing Gender Intelligence to all kinds of industries everywhere.”
HOW WE CAME TOGETHER
I first met Barbara in 1990 when she was asked by John Hunkin, then Chairman and CEO of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), to come in and improve the working culture of CIBC and Wood Gundy, the retail brokerage division of CIBC Wealth Management.
At that time, I was the senior manager in fixed income; I then moved to the equity division. It was that position in equity that opened my eyes to the company's maternity policy, something I initially tried to ignore. I'll explain that a little later on in this chapter.
Richard Venn was one of the first men I ever knew who championed women in leadership. At the time, he was president of CIBC/Wood Gundy. Richard was directly involved in bringing Barbara and her Gender Intelligence workshops into the organization. I attended a number of sessions and remember them well. The business case and brain science opened my eyes to the value of difference thinking. Since then, Barbara and I have stayed in touch and tracked each other's work for twenty years.
I remember Barbara facilitating the Gender Intelligence workshops with Wood Gundy. That firm was way ahead of the curve when it came to recognizing the value and need to have women in retail brokerage and in leadership. Wood Gundy was one of the first banks to tackle this issue and transform the trading floor culture.
More companies today are discovering that in order to achieve superior performance, they'll need the critical thinking skills of both men and women on the board level, on the executive committee, and on every management team right down through to the market‐facing consultants, advisers, and sales teams.
“You know, Richard, your recollection of when we first met takes me a little further back in my career and how I came to realize the necessity of engaging men in the advancement of women.”
BARBARA'S WAKE‐UP CALL
The time was the early 1980s and the place was the multinational firm Sony. I was climbing the corporate ladder, well on my way to becoming Sony's first female sales manager. It had been a tough journey, but I made it to the top and raised three children at the same time. I felt like I had scored a great victory for women. I was sure my story would inspire working women everywhere. And I was sure I knew the formula for success: you had to behave like a man.
Life at Sony was hectic, tough, and competitive. To tackle all the obstacles in my way, I attended—literally—a hundred coaching sessions on topics ranging from Assertiveness Training to Guerrilla War Tactics for Women. The sessions were more like military training camps than anything, but I kept going to them. Why? They worked! I won more outstanding performance awards than any of my colleagues did. I became such a tough manager that some of my colleagues nicknamed me “The Sherman Tank.”
Like many working women at the time, I believed that to be equal to men women had to be the same as men. Actually, back in the 1970s and 1980s, many feminists believed women had to be the same but better—women had to study more, work harder, and perform better than men to succeed. Basically, everyone thought the only model for success was the male model.
Nobody thought much about gender differences back then. Like everyone else, I thought “inferior to men” meant “less than men.” I bought into that thinking. I was a split personality: a man in the office, and a woman in my personal relationships and with my clients. I actually bought into the same is equal thinking so much that I decided to help other women learn to act more like men too. After all, it was the way to success.
When I looked around, I saw a lot of women struggling to make it in the corporate world, but not that many actually running companies or sitting in boardrooms. I was sure it was because women weren't trying hard enough. I believed women were self‐defeating and took things too personally, or just failed to make themselves heard. I told women to get off it and stop being drama queens. That's what the men said—and I bought into it. I told women they had to become powerful, authoritative, and assertive, and suppress their emotions and talk like a boss. It worked for me!
I stuck to this crusade for several years until one fateful incident at a workshop I was giving for women at the pharmaceutical company SmithKline Beecham. When I look back now, I can see how that workshop turned my whole world‐view upside down and led me to do the work I do today.
The workshop had started the usual way, with me preaching on about how women had to take control of their lives. When I got to the part about how to gain respect from your boss, one woman in the group stopped me.
“Why are you saying that it's women who have to change?” she asked. “What about men?”
In my mind, different meant less. There was a hierarchy, and women were lower on the ladder. I told the woman, “If you're here, it's because you're missing something.”
She didn't buy it. “We're not here because we think something's wrong with us. The problem is in the work environment. It is devaluing. That's all.”
I stuck to my line. “If you feel devalued, maybe there's something wrong with the way you put yourself across.”
But the woman didn't buy that either, and neither did any of her colleagues at the workshop. Exasperated, I ended the workshop and sent them home. I also went home—to think. And that's when I began to see that I had been getting it all wrong, all along. I understood that there was no point trying to make women act like men. Women were different from men!
At the time, I was also giving workshops to men on how to relate to women. The men actually acted very differently in workshops than women did. The men didn't nod while I was speaking, like the women. They didn't collaborate or brainstorm the same way as women. They didn't draw up lists the same way or discuss things the same way either. When I thought about my work at Sony, I realized that men and women worked differently there, too. I had always chalked these differences up to personality differences, but I started wondering if there wasn't more to it.
Well, there was! I decided to see what scientists and researchers were saying about gender differences and they had a lot to say! By the mid‐1980s, the facts were there. Men and women really were different. They think differently. They process information differently. They communicate differently.
What a huge mistake it has been, and continues to be, to try to turn women into men! Ever since that fateful workshop at the pharmaceutical company, my life has been dedicated to showing men and women how they are different, and helping them overcome the challenges caused by their differences. And we can see change happening today.
“That's a great story, Barbara. You found a way to succeed at Sony by accepting the environment and changing your nature to fit in. You just assumed, as many women and men do today, that the business environment is what it is and that you either learn to swim or drown. Men across the globe are now realizing that it's the environment that needs to change, not the women in it.”
“You have your own story, Richard. You saw through that blind spot years ago, around the time when we first met at CIBC Wood Gundy.”
“That's right, Barbara. Over the run of my career, I've learned that including women and men in my management teams led to superior results compared to men alone (or women alone, although that rarely happened). I didn't come to this conclusion until I had substantial experience in management.”
WHEN I BECAME A REAL MANAGER OF PEOPLE
The truth is, I didn't care much about the issue of advancing women in management and leadership for the first half of my working life. What I really cared about was my own advancement. But as I took on larger, more complex tasks, I had to seek greater diversity in the creation of the teams. Inevitably I became convinced that diversity led to better results than if I had limited myself to the narrower universe of men. I didn't really know why this happened, but just accepted it as fact.
I became an advocate for this approach in the firms that I joined. My views often met with mixed reactions, but I didn't care. It worked for me, and I intended to keep doing it. As I became more senior, I was able to effect systemic change in the firms I served. We would hire more women graduates at the introductory level, we would have programs to hang on to these women through the critical first seven to ten years of their career, and we would move women into more senior levels to be visible role models not only to other women but also to men.
In order to build support for this approach I had to get the men I worked with on my side. Remember: today, it is men who lead most companies—which is why this book speaks to men about how it is in their interest to change their preconceptions and behavior.
The first task is to drop as much gender bias as possible from what I call the “plumbing” of the company, a concept Barbara and I will explore more closely in a later chapter.
This meant recruitment committees had to be balanced. Promotion committees had to be balanced, not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of power. Getting the plumbing right meant changing our hiring practices and setting targets that would help us achieve our goals. It also meant changing benefit policies to accept that good maternity leave policies see more women returning from maternity leave. It meant ensuring that we were considering women as well as men in everything we did, from interviews to succession planning and board appointments.
My employer's maternity leave policies were probably the last thing on my mind in my first five years as an employee without management responsibilities. As a male employee, what possible interest could I have in these policies? Surely people wiser and more experienced than I had adopted policies at some time in the past that were fair and reasonable to both the employee and the firm.
Once I moved into management, I remember a friend outside the equity division telling me that some people were unhappy with my leadership. I couldn't understand why, given that our financial results had dramatically improved under my leadership. What more could I do for the company and for the employees? My friend told me some employees felt that I was insensitive to their needs and were, at the least, calling my leadership into question. It seemed to center around the maternity issue.
About the same time, Richard Venn, president of Wood Gundy, asked me to come see him. I assumed that I was going to be commended for the equities division's financial performance. To my surprise, it was to discuss my role with regard to the division's maternity policies.
Richard Venn listened to me as I explained that I assumed that the company had good policies and the whole matter was someone else's responsibility. Richard said that was not good enough, that I was their leader, and they expected me to act for them. He clearly wanted me to do something and that was fine by me. I knew I would have his support.
After reflecting on it that evening I decided to go to the source and sit down with some of the employees who were being affected and find out what was bothering them. It didn't take long for these discussions to get right to the point. The point was that our maternity policies were unfair and uncompetitive and what was I going to do about it? They saw me as their boss and their only hope to effect change.
My next step was to find out why our policies were unfair and uncompetitive. Of course this was not the prevailing view of the HR department, and so, with that department's help, I began an analysis of maternity policies at other leading firms. It became clear to me that we were on the lower end of the quality spectrum.
This was not good enough. Given that we were a leading firm, this didn't seem to fit with our position in the industry. I decided that we should have the best maternity policies in the industry, commensurate with our position as a market leader. I would institute these new maternity policies for the women who worked for me in capital markets. Then the rest of the firm would follow, and they did!
“I credit you, Barbara, for my education back then. In my experience, there are diversity programs that work, but many simply don't work. Yet, companies roll them out year after year with the standard assigned quotas and metrics. Everyone wants to do the right thing, but those decades‐old initiatives just haven't moved the needle.”
“That is so true, Richard. And what we've discovered over the years is that, in virtually every instance, the differentiating factor between failure and success is whether male leaders are all in and involved. Let me explain what I mean.”
THE DIVERSITY MONEY PIT
We recently conducted a study to assess the diversity programs that created a sustainable impact in advancing women into senior management. We gathered data from three technology companies, four financial services firms, and two accounting firms.3 We'll first outline the perennial diversity programs that have shown minimal success and explain why. We'll then highlight the programs that are working well and helping to move women into leadership positions.
We all know what a money pit is—an ongoing drain on financial resources. With all the best of intentions, and implemented by great people dedicated to effecting change, here are the top diversity programs that the companies in the study admit have not produced the desired results. Richard and I will explain these in more detail in later chapters.
