How Sponsorship Can Help Senior Women Break the Marzipan Ceiling

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iStock_000015225139XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

What’s keeping women from reaching the highest echelon of today’s top corporations? If you ask Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Founding President and Chairman of the Center for Worklife Policy, it’s certainly not a dearth of women’s initiatives, mentoring programs, and networking. Nor is it related to performance.

According to a new study produced by the CWLP in conjunction with the Harvard Business Group, a lack of sponsorship for women may be to blame. At a recent event hosted by American Express, Hewlett said, “34% of the marzipan layer, that layer just below senior leadership, is made up of women.” On the other hand, she said, only about 21% of senior leadership is female. And that number hasn’t increased in years.

“It’s about relationship capital,” said Hewlett.

Authored by Hewlett, with Kerrie Peraino, Chief Diversity Officer of Amex; Laura Sherbin Ph.D., Vice President, Director of Research at CWLP; and Karen Sumberg, Vice President, Director of Projects and Communications at CWLP, “The Sponsor Effect: Breaking Through the Last Glass Ceiling” outlines the ways in which women are missing out when it comes to sponsorship.

But more importantly, it is a detailed study into the sponsorship-protege relationship. It explains the urgent need for stronger sponsorship of women and how we can get it.

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Gender Quotas in Practice: The Last Straw

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boardroomBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week The Glass Hammer covered a conference hosted by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College and the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School, which asked, “Has the time come for bolder policies for diversity at the top of corporations?”

While the first part of the morning focused on academic research on the subject of quotas and gender targets, the second half focused on the practitioner perspective – how does the implementation of gender targets actually work within companies, what are the drawbacks, and how can organizations work toward a more balanced workforce?

The practitioners’ panel, moderated by Gillian Tett, US Managing Editor, Financial Times, featured Sheila Hooda, Senior Managing Director, TIAA-CREF; Ellen Stafford-Sigg, Board Member and Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP; James DeGraffenreidt, Corporate Director and Former chairman and CEO of WGL Holdings, Inc.; and Barbara Colwell, Corporate Director, Advisory Board member of Women Corporate Directors and Former Executive Director of ThinkQuest NYC.

Contrasting the morning’s discussions which, for the most part, concluded that quotas would be a positive outcome, the practitioners’ panel was not as favorable. The panelists largely agreed that quotas were not the best outcome in terms of building gender equality in the corporate space, and should be considered, at most, a last resort.

Said Hooda, “Quotas might be necessary as a last straw – like saving a drowning man.”

Tett commented, “Sometimes the last straw is necessary.”

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Diversity 2.0 Means Fixing the Systems, Not the Women

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Nicki GilmourBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

Where does the fine line lie between lip service and action when it comes to gender and other diversity initiatives? Can institutionalized behaviors be changed? Is there hope that women can reach critical mass in leadership positions in the middle, upper, and most senior echelons of business?

Well, research conducted in 2010 shows that we are still not hitting the 30% mark needed to make a difference. Many firms have stated diversity and gender parity as a goal (let’s call that diversity 1.0) but have not understood what it takes to manage the whole notion of assimilation throughout the processes of the organization. Then they wonder why the needle isn’t moving.

It is my observation that many companies are still trying to fix the women and don’t understand that team dynamics at play may undermine their good intentions when good processes are actually needed to realize the successful integration of talented people irrespective of gender, ethnicity, etc. Programs that take a critical mass approach to gender inclusion will be more successful.

For example, Renée Haugerud, founder and chief investment officer of the $1.1bn hedge fund Galtere, recently talked to the Financial Times about founding, along with along with Lauren Templeton, Lauren Templeton Capital Management, a multi-disciplinary trading program at the University of Tennessee, designed to represent a female perspective. Haugerud expressed the need to understand brain chemistry differences in trading and is adamant that critical mass is needed to keep women trading. As the FT quotes:

“One or two women on a desk of 20 men is not enough, because they will just learn to blend in.” That is in the unlikely event they manage to stay on the team: “Women in hedge funds are steered into research and sales – you have to fight to stay in the trading arena.”

An Issue that Crosses Industries

We discovered a similar issue with women in technology who are encouraged to stop programming and move into project management. The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and The National Center for Women & Information Technology did some research around this (and, in fact, we held an event for 200 technical women to inspire them to stay tech-focused). As with trading it seems, there is definitely a broken pipeline issue, as women entering the industry doesn’t seem to guarantee they will stay there.

Putting women on the replacement slate as candidates is also a work in progress and snapshots of figures of women in leadership vary year on year. It’s affecting women in the university system as well. Dr. Lucie Lapovsky, Board Member of The White House Project, and Co-Editor of TWHP’s recent Benchmarking Women’s Leadership report, says:

“The White House Project’s comprehensive Benchmarking Women’s Leadership research released in 2009 shows that there has been no change in the numbers of women college presidents in the last 10 years. Because women now head up some of the most prestigious of these, it’s a surprising figure. But currently over half of all college Presidents and Chancellors are over 61 and will be retiring. After a presentation on the Benchmarks report, those attending a specially convened American Council on Education meeting to explore the leadership issue, the group reaffirmed its commitment for ACE to continue its work to get more.”

The Connection Between Leadership and Resources

Leadership plays a big role as resources are needed to move the needle.

Call it being gender bilingual or having Gender IQ, but the fact remains some people still don’t understand that its not about convincing senior executive management and others that forcing women to act more like men in the organization will bring the best results for the business.

Each firm has its own DNA of course, and a deep understanding of what the strategic and business outcomes should look like around gender parity is the first step. Operational commitment and metrics to plot progress is necessary – with managers leading from the front, incentivized to do so and supported by HR, not the other way around.

Laura Liswood, author of The Loudest Duck and Goldman Sachs senior advisor, draws parallels to market failure and lack of gender equity in her recent Huffington Post article. She writes, “Leaders make things change, either for the better or worse by their action or inaction. Gender equity does not happen because it is wished to be so. Leaders must make it so.” She continues:

“Gender inequity is also about efficiency. Often managers are not rewarded for the ability to recruit, retain, and promote their diverse talent. Short-term awards of compensation are often focused on profits without the calculus of costs of retention, loss of female talent, and dissatisfied women who ‘off ramp’ from one employer and “on ramp” to another with more opportunities.”

I recently saw Laura speak at the Goldman Sachs Brokering Change: A Wall Street Multicultural Women’s Exchange Conference. Leadership support is evident in Goldman Sachs, creating empowering dialogues for the women themselves and implementing processes that level the playing field, reduce bias and create a system that is meritocratic in its principles. Are these systems fool proof? Of course not – there are many human factors such as the deep unconscious biases that are very hard to remove entirely. Reduce yes, eliminate probably not (until Apple invents an app for that, perhaps). The point is, this is diversity 2.0 in action. Advanced support around fixing the systems not the women is what all firms should be thinking about in 2011.

Support to Grow and Thrive

Talent management means not only attracting and hiring the best individuals, but creating an environment where that talent can grow and thrive. But what you want and what your company has planned for you may be two different futures, according to the Harvard Business Review article on “How to Keep Your Top Talent.” According to the report, 1 in 5 people think their aspirations are not in line with their company’s plan for them. And, the article states, by the end of 2009, 21% of employees could be described as highly disengaged – “those most critical of their coworkers, admittedly reducing their effort, and looking for new employment opportunities.” According to the HBR, only 8% of employees were highly disengaged in the first half of 2007. Numerous recent reports show that employee engagement is not improving. One reason for this is that today’s high performers want more from their employer – they want to work for a company that stands for the same values they do.

Our new site, www.evolvedemployer.com allows you to learn more about a company’s value set and culture before you join – including its efforts toward diversity and inclusion, sustainability, work/life issues, etc – which is good for you and for the company. For example, the companies that do not openly provide and encourage flexwork policies may risk losing high performers, as flex work is evolving from an almost exclusively female perk designed around childcare needs to a work-force-wide expected feature – which bodes well for its ultimate acceptance at any workplace.

Underscoring the importance of progressive workforce benefits, this year in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For survey, there is a “perkfinder” function which allows you to identify programs and policies around flex-work, same sex benefits, compressed work weeks, job sharing, and even gym membership.

Companies Need to Measure Their Progress

My advice to firms that are trying to get results but feel it is not happening as quickly as they would like is to examine your culture formally with an audit. Find out what your employees really think about their roles and the compensation, review, and promotion system attached to them.

Jane Weiss, co-founder of Women’s Roadmap explains, “Culture audits provide an organization with valuable information about what policies and practices exist in key areas that support an organization’s performance and how effective those initiatives and programs are aligned – or not – with the real day-to-day experiences of employees.”

Here are a two issues to consider:

  • How does management communicate?
    In a recent FT article, Lucy Kellaway compares Statestreet’s hyperbole in its layoff holiday message with Gawker’s honest staff communication around management changes. Everything starts with communication – what is the messaging to the women in the firm?
  • How useful are the networks, affinity groups, and mentoring programs?
    And if there isn’t a grassroots effort, is it because the people in the firm are scared to stick their necks out? Proclaimed meritocracies are sometimes institutionalized Darwinesque cultures that are far from level playing fields. 2011 will see many discussions around the improvement of sponsorship and mentor arrangements for women. For example, as Catalyst and HBR have recently shown us, the benefits of mentoring have been significantly fewer for women than for men.

Culture Means Unwritten Rules

Culture is a tricky one. It’s sometimes invisible to the naked eye. Ann Daly, one of our contributing experts, encourages women to know their workplace culture, so as to play within the boundaries and win. In a recent blog post, she explains:

“Culture is the web of signs and symbols that enmeshes us so completely that we imagine it is inevitable, or “natural.” Everything from language to images and institutions to rituals are part of this deep structure for our everyday lives. That’s why patriarchy is so hard to pin down, let alone change.”

Firms need to understand the strategic value of a totally inclusive culture and the commitment to see it through just as if were any other business objective.

For deep change to happen, objectives must be set, measured, and made public. For example, when Working Mother Media formulates its best companies list, it asks companies the following questions:

  • How many women corporate executive hires year on year
  • How many women are participating in management or leadership training
  • What % of women are participating in formalized executive succession planning as a % of women and as a % of total staff
  • How many women were promoted last year who utilized a formal flexible work arrangement (if you have a flex-work scheme)
  • Are there formal compensation policies reward managers who help women advance?

Women should be able to ask these questions of their own companies.

There are the unwritten rules that, for better or worse, are ingrained into business culture historically. Make sure everyone knows how to play the game, or risk watching celebrated hires leave in significant numbers, putting us back to square one – and no one likes to have the same boring conversation over and over again. Remember, as Albert Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Have a great festive season and here is to Diversity 2.0 in 2011.

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Why are Women Execs Twice as Likely to Leave a Job?

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3 Professional WomenBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

A new study conducted by professors at Oregon State University’s College of Business found that female executives are more than twice as likely to leave their jobs – voluntarily and involuntarily – as men. This is true despite the fact that women now dominate the ranks of university graduates across nearly all fields and that most women, before the age of 30, are not only experiencing more success than their male counterparts, but they’re also making more money than them. The October study, which appeared in the journal Economic Inquiry and analyzed data from Standard & Poor’s 1500 firms, has left many wondering: what gives?

The study found that about 7.2 percent of women executives left their jobs, compared to 3.8 percent of men and both the voluntary rates (4.3 percent versus 2.8 percent for men) and the involuntary rates (2.9 versus 0.9 percent) were higher for women executives. Despite systemic evidence that women are more likely to depart from their positions, the researchers did not find a smoking gun.

“The evidence suggests that women are being drawn out and forced out at higher rates; however, we don’t see too much evidence of a systematic pattern in the types of firms that are forcing or having women drawn out,” said John Becker-Blease, lead author of the study and assistant professor of finance at Oregon State University. “So in a sense, it seems the playing field is uniformly tilted against women across firms.”

The study also found that women are more likely to leave smaller firms and firms with more male-dominated boards. Consistent with past research, the Becker-Blease’s research also indicates that women are more likely to leave a job due to domestic or social responsibilities than men, which explains the higher voluntary departure rate. When it comes to being dismissed from a job, Becker-Blease’s research just confirms something that we’ve known for a long time: women at the mid-levels of management may not be getting the kind of opportunities and professional support that they need to advance successfully to the top ranks.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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iStock_000013858824XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

The Glass Hammer is taking a few days off to celebrate Thanksgiving here in the US. We’d like to give thanks for all of the incredible women (and men) who are working hard to shatter the glass ceiling.

If you have some time off this week, why not catch up on a few of our recent most popular stories?

Additionally, The Glass Hammer is always looking for ways to showcase the women who inspire and empower us – if you’d like to nominate someone to be profiled on the site as Voice of Experience, Mover and Shaker, or Rising Star, please get in touch with me at melissa@theglasshammer.com. We’re also looking for more Intrepid Women, who are pushing their boundaries personally and professionally, as well as subject matter experts to contribute to our ask-the-expert column.

Finally, this is a busy time of year for just about everyone. In honor of Thanksgiving, consider taking few minutes to thank your mentor for their help and advice. A simple thank-you goes a long way, and will be much appreciated during the holiday rush.

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Why Negotiating and Networking Go Hand in Hand

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Group of Multiethnic Diverse Busy Business PeopleOn Tuesday, The Glass Hammer hosted our latest event on career management. Sponsored by Accenture, Bloomberg, and Sungard, the event discussed how women can build professional negotiation skills, and provided tips on networking and how to navigate tricky office politics.

Panelist Carol Frohlinger, Principal at Negotiating Women Inc. and co-author of Her Place at the Table, commented, “Women often suffer from the tiara syndrome – we work hard and wait for someone to place a tiara on our head.” But, she said, in today’s environment, we can not wait for someone to notice hard work or reward it appropriately.

“We must proactively negotiate for the conditions of our own success,” Frohlinger said.

The event’s panelists included Frohlinger, Anne Erni, Head of Leadership, Learning and Diversity, Bloomberg; Camille Mirshokrai, Global Director of Leadership Development, Accenture; Linda Descano, President and CEO, Citi Women & Co.; and Kathleen Weslock, Chief Human Resources Officer, SunGard. The discussion was moderated by Selena Rezvani, co-founder of Women’s Roadmap, Washington Post columnist, and author of The Next Generation of Women Leaders.

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Networking: Why Even the Biggest Events Have Strategic Value

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

It has been a busy week at theglasshammer.com – as you can see from our coverage we have been attending several events: The Women’s Conference, the FWA’s event with PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian, and Deutsche Bank’s Women on Wall Street Conference.

What constitutes a good event, which ones should you go to, what should you expect to get out of the networking event? Good networking events can offer the following benefits:

1) Useful content delivered by an inspiring panel – You learn something that will help you in some way (it can be generic advice or a specific action you can take)
2) Good contacts – you actually swap cards with people who you can do business with at some point

Bad networking events usually offer very little content of value, and on the people side of things, there is no reason to write or call anyone whose card you swapped yours with.

No networking at all is the worst kind of event for women, as we traditionally have less access to networked business conversations where decisions are made. Therefore, we need to form our own connections. Where do you start in one room with two thousand women, like at the Deutsche Bank WOWS event? You start by reaching out to the female clients (not friends) that you want to do business with ahead of time, and ask them to meet you at the door going in. Use these events strategically. Small events are easier to navigate, and theglasshammer.com hosts 100-200 women only at a time at our events.

I enjoy big events if they have interesting panel speakers and I am constantly in awe of the what some of these senior women have to say about their experiences. My favorite panelist at WOWS this year was Alex Lebenthal, CEO of Lebenthal & Company, recounting her childhood visits to her grandmother, “Mrs. L,” in the Wall Street office she ran since 1925, with Lady Liberty standing in the distance. This memory of leadership by a women, through the eyes of a child, leaves quite an image in your head.

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Wake Up: We Need to Fix the Business Case for Women in Leadership

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iStock_000011687553XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Fifteen percent. That’s how many women make up executive committees of American’s top companies. In Europe it’s only 7%. And in Asia – only 3%. That’s what 20-First revealed in this year’s WOMENOMICS 101 Survey.

And while these are all more than… say… zero percent, it’s nowhere near the 30% critical mass so many female leaders have called for, nor the company-specific gender balance approach advocated for by 20-First’s Founder and CEO Avivah Wittenberg-Cox.

What can we do to correct the imbalance? Wittenberg-Cox says it comes down to the framing of the issue. “When women consider themselves ‘diverse’ they are keeping themselves in the minority.” In actuality, women are not in the minority at all. For example, she continued, women make up 60% of Europe’s university graduates and 80% of consumers – both of which are clearly majority percentages. “Until women understand this, we will not convince the guys that gender is a strategic business issue,” she said.

Similarly, a recent survey of board directors [PDF] showed that the business case for women in corporate leadership is failing.

The study, by Heidrick and Struggles, WomenCorporateDirectors, and Dr. Boris Groysberg of Harvard Business School, showed that “More women directors than men felt that three ore more women on a board made it more effective (51% vs. 12%) and that women brought unique attributes to the board (90% vs. 56%).”

The 20-First analysis of Executive Committee gender balance and the Heidrick and Struggles study on board directors show one thing – we’re not getting anywhere fast when it comes to achieving gender parity at the highest levels.

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Nordic Countries Top Gender Equality List: What Are They Doing Right?

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Confident business woman with other employee's at the backBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

The World Economic Forum has just released its Global Gender Gap Report [PDF] for 2010. And for the second year in a row, Iceland topped the list as having the smallest gender gap. The report ranks countries based on gender balance related to economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

The report showed that across most countries, the gender gaps in heath and education are nearly closed, but parity is a long way off for economic and political attainment. The report says:

“However, the gap between women and men on economic participation and political empowerment remains wide: only 59% of the economic outcomes gap and only 18% of the political outcomes gap has been closed.”

The continued gap in these areas is a serious problem. When women across the globe are not considered as valuable as men economically or politically, we are ignoring half of our best and brightest individuals. It follows that companies and countries are only performing at half capacity. Vineet Nayar, Chief Executive Officer, HCL Technologies, said:

“The Global Gender Gap Report highlights serious gender inequities that need to be rectified. But just as important, it shines a light on the squandered resources that result from our failure to leverage female human capital. The report’s message is one that businesses must heed — not just out of fairness but because companies are wasting talents and skills that can generate significant competitive advantage.”

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Women on the Buy-Side: What Does Dodd-Frank Mean for the Capital Markets?

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startup-849804_640(1)Tuesday marked The Glass Hammer’s biggest “women on the buy-side” investment management event so far – due in no small part to the turbulence and uncertainty in the capital markets, driven by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Moderated by journalist Heidi Moore, our panelists discussed how Dodd-Frank will impact the investment management field – regarding transparency, compliance, consolidation, and more – and what those changes mean for individuals in the industry, and their companies.

The panel featured Gina M. Biondo, Tax Partner, Financial Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Christine Hurtsellers, Chief Investment Officer, Fixed Income and Proprietary Investments, ING Investment Management; Donna M. Parisi, Partner and head of the Asset Management Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP; Marcy Engel, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Eton Park Capital Management, LP; and Holly H. Miller, Partner, Stone House Consulting, LLC.

Dodd-Frank’s Biggest Surprises

Moore opened the debate with a discussion of how the regulatory bill had evolved since reform was first being considered – and asked the panelists what Dodd-Frank’s biggest surprises were.

Engel replied, “The biggest surprise was the Volcker Rule saying that proprietary trading by banks should be prohibited.” Early on, she said, no one had thought that it was likely to be included. “The more banks lobbied against it,” she explained, “the harder the push back.”

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