In my previous blog, Why do men hold back women in the workplace, I referred to the groundbreaking Mckinsey report by Joanna Barsh and Lareina Yee that addressed the frustrating lack of women at senior levels in America’s business.
Their recommendations for resolving the problem are both realistic and practical. But for some reading this blog, I need to reinforce the fact that dealing with the problem simply because it’s the right thing to do won’t cut the mustard. A diverse leadership team is highly is highly advantageous for their business.
Many of the leading consumer products firms understand the business rationale for women in leadership. They recognize, as the McKinsey report asserts, that there is a bevy of research that highlights strong statistical correlations among large numbers of senior women, financial performance, and organizational health. The bottom line: companies gain hard business benefits from a more diverse senior team.
Based on the experience of successful companies the report makes five recommendations:
- Injecting greater rigor into people processes
- More data on the subject
- Thoughtful targets pushing women into key roles
- A company specific case for women
- Better sponsorship approaches
I believe that all five of the issues can be exceptionally useful. Although some firms are merely giving lip service to the discussion of women in the workplace, most companies are aware of the problem, but not many are aware of the benefits of the diverse senior team.
I’m committed to the proposition that long term innovation, whether in the form of change or new products and services, is first and foremost built on our ability to sell its benefits to the relevant stakeholders. Steve Jobs is the master at that issue. Some think it’s the quality of his innovations, but I doubt that. In the final analysis Jobs is focused on benefits his products and his services can bring to the consumer. Jobs understands the consumer as well as anyone on earth. Thus, changing companies’ minds about women is fundamentally a sales job. The McKinsey article addresses this issue, but it fails to make clear enough that every organizational leader who understands the benefits of women in leadership had better be able to address the benefits of their proposal to the fundamental stakeholders of the organization.
There’s solid agreement today that In order to do different things and make change, at least on a consistent, systematic basis over a sustained time period, organizations and their people must begin to think differently. What that means is that data is exceptionally important. In order to change thinking there are going to have to be a great number of conversations. Conversations which openly deal with the assumptions a manager makes and the data underlying those assumptions. What that implies, also, is that execs take data seriously, that they make data a central part of their decision making and that they can recognize that the inferences and ultimate conclusions they draw are built on data. Now the data they use may be poor or inadequate, but still they need the expertise to think data. Organizational cultures vary in their willingness and ability to deal with data. Lacking those characteristics makes the change process far more difficult.
Furthermore, for execs to commit themselves to change is one thing. But it’s another to actually make progress on those commitments. Leaders will need to guard against backpedaling and be sure to continually keep the process going.
These McKinsey women have made a significant contribution to women in the workplace. It’s an article that HR people and the company leadership will find very useful.