The Gender Agenda

To Quota or not to Quota

Those of us that have been focused on the Gender Agenda for some time are well versed on the topic of quotas. Given that this is an area of ramped up focus currently in Europe I thought it would be interesting to ask Aoife to give some thought to the topic of quotas for two reasons.  Firstly, as a newcomer to the area of gender diversity I was interested in hearing her view, and secondly, as the European based member of our global team I was also interested in hearing her view, and her view she shares…..

Enjoy!

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The discussion and debate on quota’s continues and has received some recent stimulation as result of Viviane Reding’s recent proposal for EU legislation requiring 40% of non executive board seats to be appointed to the ‘under-represented gender’, of course we all know that in most cases this means women.  Reding is vocal in her view that self-regulation has failed, the result... legislation is the only option to accelerate gender equality in many of the most senior areas of business life. 

If approved Reding’s proposal would require state-owned companies to name women to 40 percent of the seats on supervisory boards by 2018, and by 2020 for publicly listed companies, along with various levels of sanctions for those that do not meet them.   Reding is expected to make the final proposal public by mid-October.  The legislation itself requires approval from the Union’s 27 governments and the European Parliament; some of which have already adopted quotas while others have publicly opposed such a system.  With all this in mind I have no doubt we will all be watching this space….!

In fact, a panel session entitled ‘Strategic Shifts: The future of human capital’ at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting of the new champions (also known as the ‘summer-Davos’) in China last month got to discussing the very topic, as result of a question posed from the audience, who was a member of the European Parliament (watch the panel discussion by clicking here).

Considering all of the above and my relative ‘newness’ to the area of gender diversity, I gave myself a moment to pause and reflect on something that I had never really thought about before.  As a relatively young women in business, how do I feel about quotas?  And, do I think they are the answer? 

I look at my career and I think back to starting off and just how challenging it was to find a strong female role model I aspired to emulate.  Would my career path of been clearer, easier if this was not the case? And what if in line with quota requirements, 40% of the leadership landscape I was exposed to was female.  Would I wonder if that 40% got there on their own merit or were in token roles to fill such quota requirements?  These are questions I can only ponder, not answer. 

Naturally, I begin to think about the last few months of my career, another beginning, the beginning of my most recent role.  Given its focus is one of diversity and inclusion I think about all of the unnerving gender diversity metrics I am learning about throughout the world of business.  In this regard, I echo Dennis Nally’s (PwC’s global chairman, speaking at the aforementioned WEF session) frustrated view,  that given the female rates of participation in education and the workplace, the rate of change and involvement at the ‘top’ is just too slow. 

But does this mean I’m a supporter of quotas, well I’m not so sure.

I would like today’s talent and tomorrow’s talent to have female role models to aspire to, yes.  But I also want the focus to shine beyond the topic of women at the top.  Instead, for it to shine on women at every stage of their career ladder, so that perhaps they begin to naturally flow rather than fight their way to the top.   While progress is slow, I do believe that progress in this area is beginning to take form.  That succession pipelines that include qualified female talent for mission critical roles are beginning to take shape.  A sentiment widely expressed by the panel of the referenced WEF session as they clearly articulate that the bench strength of female talent for such positions undoubtedly exists.

The question that really concerns me with regard the European proposal for quota’s is not will it drive change, or will it impede it.  But what impact will it have on all the hard work that has gone before with regards driving more parity in these pipelines.  My concern is that such quotas might eat up this pipeline and we begin to see a trend of increasing non-executive female board members and decreasing female board members.  Personally, I would prefer to see this pipeline channelled towards C-suite roles rather than quota driven non-executive board roles, with today and tomorrow’s talent having female role models by way of CEO’s, COO’s, CIO’s and CFO’s to aspire to. 

For the first time ever in PwC’s 15^th annual global CEO survey the issue of talent has been catapulted into the top three strategic challenges CEO’s say they are facing.  The issue of closing corporate leadership gender gaps is part of this challenge.  

For me, having a leader who believes in the case for change, is frustrated with the rate of change, and willing to drive change, the right kind of change, seems much more important and impactful than legislating quotas.  At PwC, with Dennis Nally, we are lucky to have that kind of leader, but of course I appreciate this will not be the case for all organisations.  

So I’ve reflected and thought about it, and I am not convinced that quotas are the answer.  But I am just one voice in an endemic debate.   What’s your view?  And if like me, you would like to understand Viviane Reding’s perspective better then tune into womens-forum.tv (at 10.30 GMT) this Thursday to hear Reding speak about the very same at the 2012 Women’s Forum For The Economy and Society Global Meeting, taking place in Deauville, France.  I have just arrived in Deauville and I am very much looking forward to being part of the discussion. 

Aoife

Gender Diversity in Professional Service Firms: Female Representation Boosts Performance

We are proud that globally PwC is one of the professional services industry’s largest graduate recruiters. Out of the 17,000 new graduate we hire annually, 51% are women. So, when Giulia Tongnini, a 23 year old recent MSc graduate of Bocconi University in Milan contacted us about her MSc thesis research findings on gender diversity in the management consulting industry, we immediately asked her to write a guest blog.

Inspired by extant research findings indicating a positive correlation between female leadership and firm performance, Giulia, as a woman strongly interested in a career in management consulting, decided to explore explicitly if similar findings would present themselves for the consulting industry. Giulia’s guest blog specifically highlights what she feels her research findings mean for professional services firms and female graduates wishing to pursue a management consulting career. 

Enjoy!

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Ciao,

As a woman strongly interested in a career in consulting, I chose to write my master thesis on gender diversity in the consulting industry.  That’s me in the photo below at my graduation.

In my sample of 81 consulting firms, I found that female professionals accounted for 39% of the total workforce, yet female partners accounted for only 17% of total partners. Clearly women seem to ‘disappear’ as we move up the ranks.  Through interviews with female consultants I discovered that a primary reason for this phenomenon was that, at a certain point in their careers, women chose to willingly exit their firm so as to focus on their families or other priorities.  This is largely because they don’t feel the consulting industry will allow them to progress in their careers and simultaneously focus on their families.

The second main finding of my research was that of a positive correlation between firm performance, measured in terms of profitability, and female representation in my sample of consulting firms. Most significant was the relationship between profitability and the percentage of female partners. Based on the research findings of my thesis, consulting firms may be able to improve profitability by increasing female representation at higher levels.

My research results have implications for both consulting firms (and professional service firms in general) and for female graduates like myself, looking towards pursuing a career in professional service firms.

By increasing female representation, professional service firms can achieve a balance of skills that can help firms better solve client problems.  Those professionals interviewed through the course of my research, in fact stated that mixed teams allow firms to bring diversity in tackling assignments. Male and female professionals have different strengths and competencies. Having a gender diverse workforce will allow firms to achieve a balance of complementary skills.

As for the effects on firm performance, there are the potential improvements in profitability that my research findings posit.  In addition, research by McKinsey has found that gender diversity programmes aimed at increasing female representation can also improve employee motivation, customer satisfaction, and corporate brand name. Gender diversity programmes may also allow firms to achieve cost savings. Keeping female professionals inside the firm decreases employee turnover, which can be extremely costly in terms of recruitment and retention efforts.

So, how can professional service firms increase female representation? At the start of my research project, I perceived the apparent ‘glass ceiling’ in the industry to be caused by a male-dominated workplace environment or by possible discrimination towards women.  However, my research findings suggest it is a lack of policies specifically aimed at helping women move to the top ranks in their firms, while allowing them to take care of their families at the same time, that poses an obstacle to women’s career advancement in this industry.

If the main reason behind the ‘disappearance’ of women within management consultancy firms is the difficulty in achieving work-life balance, then firms need to tailor their gender diversity programmes to this effect. Firms have already begun moving in this direction by offering flexible and reduced work schedules, childcare support, and mentoring and training schemes, to name just a few.  These policies allow women to achieve their career objectives without having to forego or sacrifice their family life.

This is great news for female graduates like myself! Having always perceived the professional service sector as being heavily male-dominated, the presence of gender diversity policies shows me that this is now changing. As awareness of gender issues in the workplace increases, so will the number of firms implementing specific measures aimed at helping women in their career advancement. I hope that empirical studies showing a positive correlation between gender diversity and firm performance will convince those more sceptical firms that gender diversity programmes can truly make a difference.

Knowing that these programmes are in place demonstrates that firms are actively working towards helping women like myself succeed in their careers while pursuing family objectives at the same time. This is a factor I will definitely take into consideration when choosing the firms to which I will apply.

Giulia

Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee: Boxing and Business

London is basking in the wake of Olympic bliss as natives cautiously trickle back into the city and celebrate an exceptionally smooth and successful two weeks of athletic magnificence. The theme of the games has been, "Inspire a Generation," and as the streets fill with bicyclists, runners, and pick-up basketball games (more than she's ever seen on the London streets, a colleague told me yesterday), you can't help but believe that it has done just that.

I believe strongly in the power of sports to develop young girls into leaders, so imagine my delight when Aoife arrived from Dublin yesterday with this blog on Katie Taylor, Olympic gold medallist and Irish boxing phenomenon...enjoy!

Dale

Hello all,

Olympic fever has likely had an impact on you all for the past few weeks, as a spectacular Olympic event took place in London.  This is not the first time the gender agenda has considered athletics, a previous blog by Dale brought focus to the link between involvement in team sports and female success in business.  This blog looks at the parallels of a successful female boxer and the successful business leader.

Here in my native Ireland, the Olympic excitement and celebrations have been amazing.  A small nation (population 4.59 million), Olympic medals come few and far between.  London, 2012, however presented us with our first gold medal in twenty years, awarded to Katie Taylor, of Bray, Co. Wicklow. 

We all know that world champions of any nature are both special and few and far between.  In boxing, like the C-suite, female champions are indeed even sparser.  Those business leaders that have been truly great and are globally admired were not just successful business leaders achieving greatness during their peak, but they left behind a legacy.  Katie Taylor, has and is without doubt achieving greatness.  She is a five time European champion, four time World champion, and now Olympic champion. 

But she has not just made history in this regard.  Katie, herself, is credited with being instrumental in getting female boxing included in the London games.  So successful were the female bouts, that the number of weight divisions has already been increased for Rio, 2016.  It is in this regard, that Katie like the greats of the business world has not just achieved greatness, but created a legacy, and all by the tender age of 26.

Katie is a history maker; the first female boxer to win lightweight gold at an Olympics games, the first female boxer to be awarded the accolade of female boxer of the Olympic tournament, the first boxer to win a gold medal for Ireland in twenty years.  

However, despite Katie’s shrewd competitive streak and ambition, she is a shy, humble, reserved and modest young woman.  Traits that have endeared her so much to the Irish public and boxing world, they have made her the poster girl for sport in Ireland and women’s boxing globally.  Upon completion of each Olympic bout, she thanked her faith, her team, and her support, with not a hint of an ego or self proclamation.  In my mind, she achieves what Jim Collins describes as level 5 leadership.  In the boardroom, she would be described as the authentic rather than the charismatic leader. 

Those who might not know much about boxing might consider it a brutal and rough sport. It is however in fact nicknamed the ‘sweet science’ because it is a game of tactics.  Katie studies her competitors pre-bout, analyses   their form and every development throughout the fight, all while fighting with the expectations of a nation on her shoulders.  Just like the boardroom executive, to achieve her accolades Katie has undoubtedly had to be a strategic thinker. 

When her opposition appeared to resort to what the sport would call as ‘trash talk’ before the gold medal match, Katie did not respond.  Post-win she thanked her opposition for providing an excellent and challenging fight.  Katie is ethical and the consummate professional. 

Despite all of her success gender has of course been a factor.  For her first few years boxing she had no choice but to spar with males as there were no women in the sport. Had Katie been a male, she would have achieved national and global acclaim after her first world title.  Being female, this acclaim was slower to come.  But with time and success she became a national hero and sweetheart.  Being female, she had to fight hard not just for her place, but for the place of her sport at the Olympic Games; where gold medal success has no doubt guaranteed her the global acclaim she deserves.  These extra challenges of course drive parallels with the sentiments littered throughout the gender diversity literature and the extra challenges women have to overcome to make it to the c-suite.

Of course, being a success and dominating the field of female boxing has not been achieved solely by Katie herself.  She has had the appropriate family support, boxing support, coaching team and most importantly mentoring and sponsorship.  Mentors and sponsors that pushed her on, took chances on her and made opportunities for her when they did not exist.  The same sponsorship ethos required for business professionals, particularly women to advance as per Hewlett’s  ‘The Sponsor Effect: Breaking Through the Last Glass Ceiling’

Katie is without doubt a role model for all aspiring young sports women.  The photo below shows me wishing I had just some of Katie’s talent.

However, her strategic thinking, ethics and professionalism, authenticity, ability to change the rules and create a legacy make Katie a role model and inspiration for aspiring young business women also.  If Katie can make it to the top in boxing, why can’t more women make it to the top in business!

I shed a tear when Katie won her gold, and while some might consider amateur boxing and business as worlds apart, for me the opposite is true.  This blog is my tribute to Katie, for the inspiration and pride she has brought to every woman in Ireland and perhaps beyond.

Aoife

Life-changing experiences: gender, mobility, and leadership

This week's blog post introduces my new colleague, Aoife, to the PwC Global D&I team, and explores the connections between gender and mobility experiences. Enjoy!

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Hello and nice to meet you,

My name is Aoife and I am excited to have recently joined Dale in PwC’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Programme Office (a virtual office, I am based in Dublin).

In his book ‘The Leadership Mystique’, Kets De Vries (INSEAD) highlights how living and working in a foreign country is typically the single most influential developmental experience identified by effective global business leaders.  Mobility has and continues to be a key thread in my own career as I start my next chapter with the Global D&I team.

In 2000, I started my career with PwC's Learning & Development Team in Ireland. After five years, I transitioned to my first global role where I was responsible for operations and project management in our Global Ethics and Business Conduct Office.  Two years later I transitioned to my second global role where I implemented EPIC, a global key talent management programme offering developmental international assignments to our key talent below manager level.  I stayed involved with EPIC with my mandate expanding to involve global souring projects for four years (that's me, below - second from the right - with PwC's Global Mobility team in 2009) before my recent move to Diversity & Inclusion. 

I am excited that my Diversity & Inclusion role will continue my work on projects that facilitate positive change for our network. As I develop my subject matter expertise in global diversity, I've naturally drawn parallels with my own professional journey.  Responsibility for EPIC has been a real career highlight for me; having gone through the experience of an international assignment myself, I really felt I that I was involved in an offering that offered our less experienced talent a life changing experience. My time in PwC's Boston office, as a 25 year old, moving into a new role and not knowing one person in the city without doubt provided me with the most professional and personal growth and development I've had to date.

Rosalie L. Tung the Professor of International Business at Simon Fraser University in Canada, has highlighted in her research how people with international experience are pivotal to an organisation’s competitive edge in our globalised economy; with a ‘global mindset’ considered a critical competency for promotion to leadership.  What's interesting, however, is that currently only about 20% of international assignees are female.  So, what was really special for me regarding EPIC, is that 44% of our participants are female; perhaps because the international opportunity is offered early in the career! In fact, recent research and thought leadership by McKinsey suggests that women should be offered career accelerant opportunities (like international assignments) earlier in their career in order to support advancement.

Another key theme that has been beckoning at me as I get to grips with diversity is the importance of mentorship and sponsorship in supporting female progression. 

The HBR research report ‘The Sponsor Effect: Breaking Through the Last Glass Ceiling’ outlines sponsors as powerful backers who, when they discern talent, anoint it with their attention and support, promoting the talent while also protecting, preparing and pushing them.  I am testament to the power of the sponsor. While not obvious to me at the time, it was my relationship with one of the previous global leaders I worked with that changed my own career journey. He supported, pushed and promoted me so that I was selected for the EPIC position.

This sponsorship was vital to me getting the role and my first management level position given that other stakeholders were concerned that I did not have subject matter expertise in the field of expatriate management at the time.  

Becoming more familiar with the extant diversity literature has truly made me realise the importance of sponsorship for my career; past, present and future!

I leave you with one final note, another prevalent theme I am becoming familiar with: the importance of networking.  Four years ago during my first weeks in my EPIC role, I met Dale for the first time in London.  We were both interested in each others’ roles and since then continued to ‘virtually’ network with each other.  It was this networking relationship that proved fruitful in me getting the opportunity to start my current career adventure. 

I look forward to blogging again soon and now that you know me I promise to keep them shorter.

Aoife

Lies I was told: women, work, and "having it all"

Hello everyone,

Anne-Marie Slaugher's recent essay, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” incited vehement and very polarized reactions from readers. I personally didn't find anything particularly surprising in the essay (except Slaughter's underlying assumption that life should be easy).

Many of you sent me your comments on this article - so many, that I decided to ask one of my good friends, Sindhu Hirani Blume (another PwC alum), to write a guest blog with her personal reaction.

Except for my own mom, Sindhu is the coolest mom I know (I tell her this all the time) and I felt that because of Slaughter's angle, it was important that a mom write this blog.

Sindhu has been a critical influence in my personal and professional life since we met in PwC's Washington, D.C. office, where we worked in the same group. She ordered me to take a writing class (which directly and indirectly led to many things, including a secondment to Europe and my current master's program); Sindhu kindles my motivation (she sends daily reflections to me and another mutual friend, like this one: "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do" - John Wooden); and hers was the first Indian wedding that I ever attended, which changed my culinary tastes forever (yum, Vindaloo!) and fostered a semi-obsession with all things Indian

Here's what Sindhu has to say about having it all:

"In 1993, I unknowingly lied to my college classmates at a women’s college in Virginia.  I also lied to their parents, our professors, and anyone else who was at our graduation ceremony on that hot day in May.  I was the student commencement speaker for my class at Hollins College (now University) in Roanoke and I told everyone in a rather heightened voice, and with the naïveté that is naturally present at that age, that we (women) could have it all.  I meant it because I believed it.  And I believed it because it had been drilled into me.  And it was a lie.

But as with some lies, it was a great motivator.  It pushed me to set and meet goals, to do the things my grandmothers could or would not do, and the things my mother did but to do them with more freedom, choice, and control.

Today, 19 years after that speech, “having it all” is still a relevant discussion as evidenced by the much-talked-and-written-about essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” by Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Atlantic.  Slaughter writes of her internal struggles in dealing with her troubled teenage son who was in New Jersey, while she was on a two-year, high-profile assignment at the State Department in Washington, DC. After the two-year mark, Slaughter returned to her family and her job at Princeton University, although she wanted to pursue other opportunities in Washington.

I now have a husband, two children, a mortgage, a business, and live in one of the most professionally high-pressure areas of the country, and my reaction to that article was:  Well, of course you can’t have it all.  No one can.  It is painfully difficult – still more for women than men -- to have a career and family life, and for all the pieces to come together at once.

Parenting and having a robust career are two separate and mutually difficult things.  And on top of these two complex undertakings, some of us want a social life, to read a good book from time to time, to exercise, to travel.  And getting all or any of that comes down to making choices. I have no problems, for example, telling my disappointed 3-year-old son that I am not chaperoning a preschool field trip because of a meeting, but I make sure it doesn’t happen all the time.

I grew up thinking that having it all was what I perceived most men had: a thriving career and family life, and, as a well-deserved bonus, a martini on a sliver tray at the end of the day (perhaps too much “Bewitched” in my childhood).  But there are two inherent problems with this fantasy:  1. I am not a man, and 2. I did not understand fully that that concept of “having it all” for a woman meant getting lots of help (thereby lots of money) or a spouse who stayed at home.

I knew after I had a family that I would continue to work, and I have.  I love working.  I love having a job.  I love getting a paycheck.  What I did not know about was the massive love you feel and have for your children, and how it changes your heart, your energy level, and your priorities.

I was a Director in PwC’s Washington office when my daughter was born in 2007.  For a while, I felt as if I could manage and juggle.  But after my son was born in 2009, the time and energy required for two children along with my commute became unbearable.  The commute was eating up more time than I wanted or expected: the logistics of getting out the door, sitting in traffic, dropping the kids off at daycare, parking the car, getting on a train, and then walking into work were becoming mind-numbing.  By the time I got into work, I felt as if I had already put in a day.  I was exhausted and unhappy, and wasn’t doing my best at work or at home.

I studied all of my options and made a change.  I gave up a salary and incredible benefits to start a business with several other partners.  Having my own business allows me to work mostly from home and provides the flexibility to set my own schedule without a lot of guilt.  We’ve had to make a number of drastic changes in our life, both financial and behavioral, but there is something to be said for feeling sane.  I work more hours and more days now but it’s from my home office.  I still have to make compromises, but there is a difference in my energy level and what I’m able to give to my career and my family.

There are plenty of men and women who have a hellish commute and continue to do what they do after they have children:  they make choices, they enlist help, they telecommute, they work part-time, or they do none of these things and suffer through it because they have no viable or immediate options and have to put food on the table or they need the employer-provided health insurance.

I think we have to keep telling young people that they can have it all with the caveat that “all” is different things to different people and it means different things in different careers and industries, and, most importantly, you cannot have it all at the same time.  If you’re working 14 hours a day in an all-consuming, high-profile job, don’t expect to have a lot of daily, quality time with your children, unless some of those hours are committed from home. That’s a whole other discussion about work-life balance.

By the time my children are thinking about “having it all”, the work environment will have changed.  But I think I still will have to offer unsolicited advice urging them not to bend to someone else’s ideal of having it all.  Not easy, but doable."

Sindhu Hirani Blume is vice president of Trinity Place Technology, Inc., an IT government contractor.  She lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

How do cultural norms impact men and women at work?

Bonjour all,

This week's blog is written by guest writer and PwC Canada alum, Julie Armstrong. I asked Julie to write a blog after we caught up on the phone last month and I peppered her with questions about her research findings on prevailing cultural norms and how they manifest differently in men and women at work. Truly fascinating stuff. Enjoy!

I spent Memorial Day weekend in Washington, D.C., a fitting place for such a holiday (it was hot, making the unofficial start to summer feel quite official).  While wandering through (and cooling off in) the National Portrait Gallery, I stumbled across a small photograph of Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial.  For those of you unfamiliar with the history of the memorial, Ms. Lin’s design was selected, “blindly,” from a national competition.  Not only was the abstract, non-traditional nature of her design divisive – as an undergraduate student at Yale (read: young) and an Asian American woman, Ms. Lin herself ignited from some controversy.

Reflecting on Ms. Lin’s photo, I wondered: if the competition hadn’t been blind, would her design have been chosen? 

Washington, D.C., is the policy-making center of the United States – where acts of legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act have been passed.  While these groundbreaking acts formally disallow discrimination or bias on the basis of characteristics like race or gender, policy and practice are often two very different things.  Those who watch Mad Men may recall Peggy Olson’s rebuffed attempt at garnering a pay increase, arguing that a recently passed federal law afforded her the right to equal pay for equal work.

While policies certainly represent (and provoke) shifts in public opinion and attitudes, broad cultural change is often slow, full of twists and turns, contradictions and inconsistencies.

Likewise, in work organizations, formal policies are absolutely necessary when endeavouring to create a diverse and inclusive workplace – their impact is tremendous.  However, they are not a panacea.

Workplace culture, imparting what is rewarded, valued and truly important in an organization, is not always concordant with company policy, and it powerfully shapes our experience at work.

This is what my research has focused on: the way workplace cultural norms – informal as they may be – shape the experiences of professionals at work.

How workplace culture shapes professional experience

In 2011, I interviewed professionals, working in a variety of industries in Toronto and New York City.  I set out to understand how workplace culture shaped these professionals’ work experiences, and also to examine whether men and women responded differently to cultural norms at work.

What I found is that all professionals described a prevailing cultural norm, so pervasive and diffuse it spans across organizations and industries, defining what it means to be a success in the workplace.

The "Ideal Worker" Norm

This cultural norm – sometimes referred to as the “ideal worker norm” – defines the successful professional as, above all, being committed and dedicated to their work, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done and reach the next level (even granting primacy to work obligations over all else in one’s life).

Not only defining what it means to be a success in the workplace, this norm submits professionals to a variety of demands and expectations that, when fulfilled, signal one’s commitment and dedication to work: long hours, a “24/7” work ethic, “face-time” expectations, accommodating a high degree of unpredictability at work, and so on - demands that have been well-documented elsewhere.

My study participants spoke of the ensuing conflict between their work and non-work spheres of life, caused by their work’s intensity.  (Respondents felt that opting to use workplace policies designed to alleviate some of the pressure and tension that erupts between one’s work and home life carried the potential for negative career consequences, bringing one’s commitment and dedication into question.)

At the outset of this study, I suspected I would find two types of responses to the ideal worker norm: professionals who reject it and those who accept it.

My findings revealed a much more nuanced response on behalf of the professionals in the study – almost all outwardly accept the ideal worker norm, practically fulfilling the demands and expectations placed upon them and communicating their commitment to work and pursuit of success.  However, inwardly, my respondents maintain attitudes of ambivalence towards the norm, revealing the contradictory nature of their thoughts, feelings and actions while juggling a fulfilling career and personal life.

Respondents spoke of their misgivings when prioritizing work over other aspects of their lives, they expressed thoughts of uncertainty as to whether they truly aspire to make it to the top (fearing the costs they may incur in their personal lives along the way), and were highly critical of the organizational culture around them.

Gender differences:"letting others down?"

This response to the ideal worker norm was true for both men and women – yet other distinct gender differences also emerged.  Among these differences, women expressed a much greater degree of internal conflict and sense of being “torn.”  Unlike male respondents, they also described emotional consequences in response to the ideal worker norm, speaking of feelings of guilt, anxiety and worries of “letting others down.”

Fascinatingly, women didn’t just express their concerns of not being able to fulfill their role as friend, partner or family-member, but they worried about letting co-workers down – falling short and not meeting the demands and expectations of others at work.

Women’s unique response to the ideal worker norm reveals the broader cultural expectations for women to be other-oriented – to be responsive to the needs of others – not just at home, but also at work, shaping not simply assumptions about the types of jobs for which women are “naturally” well-suited but also how women should perform at work, even in fields long dominated by men.  (I should note that I make no attempt here to settle the debate of whether women actually are more other-oriented then men.)

Interestingly, most of the women respondents did not have children, and as such lacked childcare responsibilities.  And yet, the sheer anticipation of having children in the future was enough to invoke cultural expectations regarding women’s role as child caregivers, shaping women’s current response to workplace cultural norms.  Thus, just as societal cultural norms can underpin those of the workplace, the two can also clash: the emotional consequences of the ideal worker norm illustrate the bind many women find themselves in as they navigate the often conflicting expectations of their personal lives and careers.  

So what does all this mean to us, in the workplaces we go to each day?

These findings demonstrate how profoundly cultural norms, not just formal policies, shape our daily lives – both in work and outside of it.  Due to the often informal and “unspoken” nature of workplace culture, I think we have to be especially conscious and intentional about practicing cultural norms that are consistent with stated policies, values and beliefs.  And, we must also be fastidious about extinguishing the cultural norms that stem our progress towards creating truly diverse organizations.  This might mean stopping yourself right before you get ready to boast of your late night at the office, or not assuming that a colleague on a flexible work arrangement isn’t able to take on a particular assignment, or not allowing the start of a performance review discussion to be led by the number of overtime hours staff have worked.  Doing so isn’t just good for women, but for everyone at work (just think about the changing cultural expectations for men at home, and how this clashes with long held cultural expectations for men at work).

I’m not sure our workplaces will ever be “blind” – and I’m not even sure this is our goal (after all, do we really want to “ignore” our differences, which make for a richer, more meaningful workplace?).  But as each of us do our part driving the cultural change that supports the policies we already champion – day by day, interaction by interaction – we will push ourselves further down the path we’re already on: creating workplaces where the best ideas and people flourish.

Workplaces where a Maya Lin design would win. 

Don't miss this!

Bonjour

Colleagues, friends, and many of you, readers, send me pertinent articles on gender and diversity when they come across your desks.

Thanks for that - it ensures that I always have plenty of content to ponder.

I wanted to share these two must reads of the quarter in case you missed them. They're both brief and fascinating.

The first is an update on seminal McKinsey and Catalyst research, which provides further empirical evidence that gender diverse management creates a significant financial return.

The second looks at how personal lives might affect attitudes at work. This recent Harvard Business Review blog asked the provocative question: Are Women Held Back by Colleagues' Wives? Drawing from a recently published academic study, the author suggests that the marital status of managers could significantly impact their attitudes and management style.

Happy reading until next time...

Dale

Mad Men - Why Gen Y Women Need to Tune In

Bonjour,

I bet that many of you are fans of the award winning American television series Mad Men. I'm compelled and disturbed as I tune in each week to the 1960s-era workplace drama. The show now airs in seventy-one countries outside of the United States, which speaks to its broad appeal and enduring relevance across culture.

As the fifth and final season is currently airing, I want to share this great piece written by my colleague, Jennifer Allyn - a Managing Director in PwC's New York office. The piece (originally printed as an op-ed in Forbes) explores the show's diversity themes and suggests some surprisingly optimistic lessons for today's working women.

 

Mad Men, AMC's drama about the "Golden Age" of advertising, begins its fifth season this Sunday. While I love the show's outstanding acting and glamorous fashions, I also believe watching its portrayal of the "old boy's club" has a lot to teach young women today.

Senior businesswomen often complain that younger women don't appreciate how much trailblazing was accomplished by the pioneers before them. This generational tension is not easily resolved, but watching history unfold even through a television drama can help spark a richer dialogue.

The Mad Men series begins in 1960 when the major milestones of the sexual revolution, Women's Liberation and the Civil Rights movements are still years away. Our heroine, Peggy Olson, enters a glamorous new world when she's hired as a secretary by the advertising agency Sterling Cooper. It's a culture of clearly defined gender roles, where secretaries are expected to be "something in between a mother and a waitress." Creative Director Don Draper and his male copywriters spend the majority of their time smoking, drinking, having affairs and, in between those priorities, creating advertising.

A major pleasure of watching the show comes from our knowledge that the characters' lives will soon be transformed by history. We empathize with Salvatore Romano, the closeted gay art director, and want to tell him that change is around the corner. The same is true watching Peggy cautiously climb the corporate ladder. She yearns to escape the limited gender expectations of her religion and her family. And despite the limitations of the secretarial job, the world of work offers Peggy a chance at freedom, opening up the possibility of self-invention.

Although Peggy faces blatant sexism in the office, she is much more fulfilled than the wives and mistresses around her. Moreover, she is a direct contrast to office manager Joan Holloway, who's reached the top of the administrative ladder by sleeping with the boss and lying about her age. Breaking down barriers-- by standing up for her ideas, pitching to a client or even asking for an office-- is depicted as exhilarating. Peggy's struggle to find her voice and be treated as a professional is inspirational.

But too often millennial women view female pioneers from Peggy's generation as a cautionary tale, remarking, "I don't think of her as a role model." They consider Peggy's sacrifices too great--she doesn't have a family, she works too many hours, she's too intense about her career.

One might argue this is a perfectly legitimate response from women facing a very different set of workplace challenges, but I believe it's a missed opportunity for cross-generational connection. Because the workplace needs pioneers today who will advocate for more expansive definitions of flexibility, dismantle any remaining stereotypes and embrace the next level of business leadership.

Instead of just treading the long-proven paths, Gen X and Gen Y women need to break new ground, only this time around instead of leaping from the steno pool to junior copywriter as Peggy did; they need to ascend from middle management to the executive suite. Despite the success of women like Shelly Lazarus, former CEO and current chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, just 15 out of the 500 largest companies in the U.S. have a woman CEO at the helm. 

Mad Men reminds us that profound cultural change is possible. Corporate America still has flaws, but in hindsight the progress made over the past five decades is indisputable. This season begins prior to the iconic 1968 advertising campaign whose slogan capitalized on the theme of women's liberation. While some may argue it was just a cynical ploy by Virginia Slims to sell more cigarettes, the spirit of "You've come a long way baby" still rings true.

Now the urgent question becomes: Will Generation Y women grab the baton from their mothers and grandmothers and lead us all the way to the top?

Those girls from Ipanema!

Boa tarde from Brazil and happy International Women's Day!

This week I'm attending the Boston College Global Workforce Roundtable meeting in São Paulo.

The city is not at all what I expected. It rivals Manhattan for the sheer density of skyscrapers. Unmitigated traffic congestion and pervasive construction sites contrast with the vibrant building murals, the graffiti, and the abrupt foliage which appears as one turns many street corners (including a swathe of original rainforest that's been preserved in the beautiful Trianon Park).

 

In the opening session of the meeting we learned the following facts about Brazil:

São Paulo is the sixth most populous city in the world

Brazil contains 20% of the entire world's biodiversity.

The country will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016

Brazil is the only country to have held the world championship title for soccer five times

Did you notice that "world" occurred in all of those statements?

As one of the boom global economies, Brazil has enjoyed wide media coverage in recent years. Girls and women have been an integral part of that dialogue and not only because Brazil's 36th (and first female) President, Dilma Rousseff, assumed office last January and became the first woman ever to open a session of the UN General Assembly.

Notably, girls represent a majority at every level of education in Brazil's schools. In the last decade, females have also consistently accounted for a majority of both university enrollees and graduates.

A 2011 study by DiversityInc of multinational companies, found that in Brazil, women made up 41% of the workforce, 32% of management, and 22% of senior executives. Although these are encouraging figures when compared with global averages of women in management, the country struggles with equal pay (Brazilian women earn on average 30 percent less than their male counterparts.

During lunch, my colleagues from PwC Brazil - Mariza Souza and Patricia Loyola (there is a photo of the three of us below, in front of the Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge) updated me on all of their great diversity efforts.

Apart from taking action to facilitate better hiring and retention of ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, PwC Brazil recently piloted two female talent initiatives.

One - their program for part-time work aimed at new mothers - was featured recently in this Brazilian newspaper article.

The second female talent initiative is quite unique. Recognizing that new mothers were missing key "milestone" training that could potentially decelerate their development (for example mandatory line of service training for new managers), the firm implemented a policy whereby these mothers could bring their newborns and a caretaker of their choosing (i.e., a nanny, the baby's father) to the training to care for the infant. The schedule is prepared so that new mothers have requisite time to attend to nursing needs and the firm pays for the accommodation of the caretaker during the training.

Initial reactions to this program have been very positive and I look forward to hearing more from my colleagues in Brazil as they roll out these programs on a wider basis in the future.

I hope you all celebrate International Women's Day by thanking a woman who has contributed to your own development or done an exceptional job on one of your teams.

à bientôt,

Dale

Does Facebook hold the answer?

I've spent most of my working life in Washington, D.C., Brussels, and London - cities dominated by the public sector and financial services industries. As a recent transplant to the San Francisco Peninsula I've experienced a huge shift in working culture. The number of technology and social networking companies here is remarkable to someone like me - almost as remarkable as the manner in which West Coast lifers casually, calmly, and professionally deal with a 3.8 earthquake. Apple, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter are just a few of the highly innovative companies headquartered near my new digs.

I've always extrapolated that such relatively young companies, founded on the backbone of continuous innovation, should be more naturally diverse. First of all, many of these newer entities should theoretically lack the institutional barriers that government and financial services institutions have been working to overcome for decades as a result of their long life spans - for example the rigid career paths and much-discussed "old boy's network."

Second, a company whose product is born of research and development arguably stands to gain the most from the innovative ideas and products which diverse teams yield. Third, the younger average age of executives and employees in these companies could potentially mean they hold fewer biases about gender roles and more open approaches to work life balance than previous generations. And that's all in addition to the time Google allows its employees to set aside solely for innovation and the non-traditional, brain-twisting, glee-inspiring titles Facebook employees have - a friend of mine employed there has the following title/job description: "Product Marketing, Monetization and Secret Sauce."

And yet despite the raw potential to jettison monolithic corporate models and the opportunity to inculcate new ones, the numbers demonstrate that these companies don't yet fare much better when it comes to the representation of women in leadership positions. This morning two paradoxical news stories came across my desk that sparked this whole line of thinking. The first lauded Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) for being an outspoken advocate of women's empowerment as well as the executive instrumental in the company's recent IPO. The second, a Bloomberg Businessweek story, reported that while most (fifty-eight percent) Facebook users are women, there are none on its board of directors.

This ambivalence suggests that leadership diversification doesn't just happen organically. An argument I hear from sceptics of business gender programs is that with the influx of new generations in the workplace, the imbalance (of women being hired in greater numbers than men yet underrepresented at leadership levels) will auto-correct.

However this has not yet been the case. First of all, because incumbents (still vastly male) are inclined to appoint "mini me" successors who may look (but more importantly think) much like themselves; and second of all because if tech companies - which are flooded with the best and brightest young executives and talent - don't already model this "natural" balance then even newer businesses haven't created that level playing field that could fuel a more vibrant economy.

The good news is that concerted action is under way to progress talent of all kinds to leadership levels. I've been picking the brains of my new neighbours and classmates (most are employed by these companies) to find out what might differ in their corporate DNA (other than delightfully whimsical job titles) that I could bring to bear in my own work in the professional and financial services industries.

One very positive step I see here is the robust connection between these young businesses and local academics to foster diversity of thought in corporations through the business school and more interestingly, through the humanities. Recently Dr. Martha Nussbaum gave a lecture here at Stanford in which she said that a declining emphasis on study of the humanities could lead to a world of "useful profit makers with no imaginations."

This creative stagnation is precisely what diversity professionals are working against. My personal mission is to harness the brain power of different types of thinkers - both men and women - with myriad experiences who will create and implement remarkable, distinctive ideas and products.

I also believe Sheryl Sandberg's exemplary role at Facebook (her media coverage almost eclipses that of the company's founder, Mark Zuckerberg) will have a positive impact on business, since visible role models play such a vital part in the rise of diverse talent.

It's probably too soon to tell how these young companies will evolve from a gender perspective, but it will be exciting to watch for something yet undiscovered that we can learn from them in the diversity space.

If you're fascinated by Facebook's Sandberg (and it's difficult not to be), check out her uber fly TED talk on why we have too few women leaders as well as this previous Gender Agenda article on a CNBC and World Economic Forum panel discussion featuring Sandberg and our own PwC International Chairman, Dennis Nally.

à bientôt,

Dale