Tag Archive for: 2019

Year End Review 2019: Diversity and Inclusion in 2020 Must Be Done Differently

2019 year end reviewThe headline for rounding up this decade is simple: doing the same thing over and over again is the very definition of madness.

Neuroscience and behavioral science have the answers to the (lack) of gender equity issue. The questions are, do people want the answer? And are they prepared to what it takes to get there? The term “the glass ceiling” was coined 41 years ago by Marilyn Loden who argued that the “the ‘invisible glass ceiling’ – the barriers to advancement that were cultural not personal – was doing the bulk of the damage to women’s career aspirations and opportunities.”

To that point, 41 years later, companies are still doing one thing wrong when addressing the issue of gender. What is this core truth? It is written concisely in the London School of Economics editorial in Forbes and is as simple as this: we focus too much on the role of the individual in perpetuating or solving these issues. Resulting in blaming men and burdening women.

Why is progress so slow? The decade in review

First of all, progress is slow. The decade started with a flurry of great research from Catalyst and Sylvia Ann Hewlett offering strong answers like sponsorship over mentorship and increased pipeline attention for women in crucial moments. This was good work, helpful and even hopeful but lacked the much needed shift of work from individuals to systemic answers despite knocking on that door. Progress was derailed in my opinion by 2013 by the unwitting false prophecy of “Lean In” with a misleading mantra which distracted leaders and diversity people from the real work as this false single fix was what people wanted to hear. More work for the women, everything else untouched. This is a prevalent theme with employee networks and training courses this entire decade. The most recent episode in the news was the EY training asking women to act nicely around men course leak which someone finally recognized as worth a whistleblow.

Even “Lean In” has the conclusion in 2019 that the sane academics and theglasshammer have been suggesting all the while, which is that you do what you have to do to get the system to lean in as well in order to truly succeed. The book was useful as it sparked the beginning of the discussion around privilege, and Ann Marie Slaughter’s counter piece on the system was a way to introduce what systemic barriers meant for people entering the discussion. Sandberg’s later work with Adam Grant on was excellent as we know she personally did the work but the people who made her the poster child only heard the message of “its on the women to do more”. The brightest spots for me in this era of 2013-2018 were Herminia Ibarra’s Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader with act-first-internalize-later theory but in conjunction with the inside-out approach of challenge – whose beliefs you are running around with? – of Kegan and Lahey’s work Immunity to Change. Finally, there is Cordelia Fine’s book called Testosterone Rex stating that behavioral differences are cultural, not biologically natural, to debunk the faux brain science of the two thousand and mid-teens. I won’t name names, but even if you believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus (which I don’t), we are all conditioned by earthly norms developed from  cultural (societal and inside whichever family you lived) messaging.

Legal Structures Do Matter Also

The World Economic Forum at Davos in 2018 proclaimed in their “Global Gender Gap Report” that at this rate it will take between 106 and 400 years to achieve gender equity. The US is ranked 51 in the global index, which includes economic participation, heath and survival, education and political (legal) empowerment. Iceland is ranked number one, with the Nordics filling the top four spots of getting there and UK sitting at number 15 in this global study. Guess what? Strong social fabric with less machismo, a safety net and laws that protect women seem to matter for gender equity. What we can learn from this report is that legal and policy support is fundamental to a gender equal society. The Equal Rights Amendment was still not ratified in the USA this decade, so women are technically not legally equal to men. Worth watching the documentary Equal means equal.

Does systemic change influence attitudinal change?

Yes, but only to the extent to which people can dissect their feelings around their thoughts. If someone has a strong belief system (say the implicit patriarchy and its schema of how society is constructed and run with normed and formed gender roles in this case of “diversity”) then it is harder for them to have attitudinal switches. However, if people have no feelings or the switch supports their feelings (and arousal such as fear is a common feeling) they are very easy to change their minds. Change in the status quo terrifies most people.

Also, we tend to have fixed ideas on the way it is and the “who is it.” This shows up as stereotypes, positive and negative, as we often forget how we naturally authorize men and deauthorize women all day long – and both sexes do it. We have written about how people hold stereotypes ubiquitously as many women have so much internalized sexism that they enjoy a massive benefit-of-the-doubt exercise on talent and competence as much as the next guy. Just this week Michelle Obama talked about not being so quick to defer and to resist a man’s presumption of power. Interestingly, if you read social media or onlne newsletter’s comment boxes, after a statement like this, someone (it is inevitable) says not all men, defensively of men, or worse, something personally dismissive (subconsciously racist) about Michelle Obama as a person. Observe your feelings and reactions as it is exactly this type of cognitive awareness that enables us to make choices such as language and nomination of the most talented person and get away from the binary of good or bad categorization that prevents you from uncovering biases and preferences. I mean literally Boris Johnson, said and did everything Theresa May had already done, but society and history will never remember that. This happens to women in meetings all day long.

It is not a battle of the sexes as that is a race to the bottom and we lose so much by generalizing all women or all men. Working on where cognitive process meets social conditioning is what the future of diversity needs, not HR compliance work on drinks parties or even panels (we have stopped holding them and ours were pretty groundbreaking). It is not Noah’s Ark with two of everyone and even if it was that, we have failed there too to gain real parity and have created all the wrong conversations.

It is costing everyone money by not changing. Possibly you personally. Practice forgiveness starting with yourself because we are all on a journey to evolve ourselves, our teams and society at large.

Awareness first, then doing the work to understand the very unique ways that each person needs to make the behavioral changes that creates success, sustainability and happiness is what we help leading women ( and men) in financial services and Fortune 1000 companies do with our coaching work. If you want to book a complimentary chemistry call with me to discuss if coaching could help you in 2020, book here.

We wish the readers of theglasshammer a happy and safe festive season. See you in January.

/by

2019 Workplace Predictions

,

diary, predictions

Guest Contribution by Fierce Inc.

An increasing number of fledgling workers are currently being thrust into the spotlight as baby boomers retire and millennials and Gen Z increasingly take over the majority of new jobs.

Many companies are at a loss with how to properly deal with this change and the publicity that comes with it. What makes matters worse, many suffer from a “culture of nice” and have complicated organizational structures, which only perpetuates business problems and proves detrimental to the bottom line. A survey Fierce conducted found that over 40% of leaders felt their organization suffered from “terminal niceness,” valuing politeness over the pursuit of the best ideas and perspectives.

Based on our conversations with current and potential clients — after thousands of hours of conversations and learning about their concerns, unique challenges and goals — we’ve developed the below five trends that we predict will be key to organizations of all sizes in 2019:

Increased accountability for corporate bad behavior. We’ve all seen the news: companies seem to be plagued with worsening scandals, dubious leadership practices and unethical decisions at a near constant rate. Moving forward organizations will internally face these issues head-on, as they happen. No longer will they be swept under the rug or ignored altogether. To get in front of some of these potentially negative stories and to ensure they know what happens within their companies, leaders will work to gain a deeper understanding and connection to the people who make up their organization. This means the popularity of employee training and engagement programs will rise and cover a wide range of topics such as diversity, unconscious bias, ethics, and inclusion.

Fewer organizations will suffer from a “culture of nice.” In these “overly nice” environments, no truly productive feedback is given. People are afraid to disagree or speak up, refuse to address problems and rarely challenge the status quo. A culture of “nice” lends itself to a host of challenges including lack of trust, higher turnover, and lower productivity—none of which are actually “nice.” As organizations continue to improve their conversations skills as it pertains to feedback, and as younger workers vocalize their desire for more frequent feedback, the number of organizations who suffer from this type of culture will decrease in the coming year.

Generation Z will no longer be ignored. An estimated 61 million Gen Zs will apply for jobs in the U.S. next year, many entering the workforce for the first time. However, organizations are only spending 4% of their resources on training those less than 25 years old, according to IBIS. Organizations will be forced to adjust to this new reality in 2019, and in order to be successful, will need to find innovative ways to invest more heavily in their training from the get-go. Fierce believes the New Year will be an area of growth in this regard, as organizations figure out the best way to engage with this new generation. A part of this will no doubt be providing the right resources to this tech-savvy generation to help them succeed both in the short and long term.

Companies will move away from hierarchy and towards more agile teams. Organizations are starting in earnest to understand that strategic alignment is key to their success, and the best way to achieve it is to ensure the company is flexible and responsive at every level. There will be a shift away from teams interacting only at the highest echelons within an organization and towards a more integrated and collaborative approach. With this shift will come an increased need for communication skills, as it will be imperative that managers are well-versed in both delegation and decision making. By empowering teams with greater opportunities for collaboration, 2019 will result in higher productivity and employee engagement.

Progress will be made on digital transformations. While most organizations have been slowly integrating digital components across many areas of their business, 2019 will be the year where real progress is made. Organizations will spend more time focused on truly understanding the needs of the end user—be it employees, clients or customers—and in turn, work with their IT departments to ensure these needs are being met. Innovation is no longer a luxury; without adopting and staying on top of digital trends, organizations will become obsolete.

When we look back a year from now, how successful company leaders are at addressing these themes will come down to a key component — the strength of their conversations. The skills leaders have in addressing issues, assessing concerns and finding solutions all come down to one simple thing: how well an individual can communicate and connect with those around them.

Guest contributions express views of their own and are in no way affiliated or endorsed by theglasshammer.com

/by

2018 Year in Review: Looking ahead to 2019 and Beyond

,

By Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com

As 2019 is getting underway, I dare to feel slightly upbeat since figures show that there have been gains for women in board seats for the first time in ten years in the US with women making up 31% of newly appointed directors for 3000 companies between January and May of last year. Do not question me too deeply on my optimism as overall, there is still vast amounts of work to be done since there is a tenacious link at best between board and female management progress. And, before we get too excited, the number women on boards is only hoovering around 18%-20% overall regarding female board directors in big companies in the US. The European Union varies greatly country by country with some highlights and low lights which is interesting since culture is the variable element in a legislatively mandated arena. France is leading the charge with almost 35% women on boards with Nordic/Baltic nations (Sweden then Latvia next at around 30%) with Italy, UK, Germany and the Netherlands inching up around 26% female board representation. Asia is deemed to have the lowest female board numbers (around 8%) but higher numbers (40%) for senior female leadership roles than the US or most of Europe.

Why Such Slow Progress for Boards?

As research from Kellogg Insights (Northwestern) points out, the criteria for hiring women for boards puts an unfair standard on women that seems to not apply to men regarding their job title or experience. Also, there is the little elephant in the room regarding why perceptual euphoria is reached when a third of board are women, as opposed to not putting unconscious putting limits on it as what we are really saying is we expect one gender to continue to  dominate decision making. Power sharing is never really that if women are expected to not exceed 30% of board representation, (if that is even reached) whereas men are being implicitly expected to hold 70-100% of it for the near and far future despite the ten year (at least) claim that women are graduating in greater numbers from university.

Back to the Future?

Should we re-read “Men and women of the corporation?” This amazing book written almost forty two years ago seems to be still relevant today Rosabeth Moss Kanter states in an interview to (another favorite) Robin Ely in HBR, via Forbes,

“The main idea in Men and Women of the Corporation is about institutions and self-perpetuating cycles. It’s about the interplay of structure and behavior. If you observe behavior—like a woman seems to be less ambitious in a particular situation—do you conclude “Women don’t go for success,” or do you conclude there’s something about that situation that’s evoking a certain kind of behavior. I looked inside the company, and I looked at the evidence about gender roles outside the company, in society. There was always an interplay. There were women in management, but they tended to be concentrated in the more routinized functions. And if you’re in the more routinized functions, it’s hard to break out, because you’re not being rewarded for independent judgment, and we still have that today, with the notion that women lack “vision” compared to men……. What would account for ambition or a lack of ambition? Opportunity. That’s pretty simple. If the door is open, you can aspire to go through it. If it doesn’t seem to be open, you can’t. In the company I wrote about in Men and Women, a lot of it had to do with the placement mechanisms.”

This book was published in 1977. It is 2019 and frankly we have seen such a fast rate of change in every other aspect of life, but not diversity.

Most corporations despite their diversity programs and networks and sponsoring of gala tables, do not have the faintest notion of what they need to do to see real change. Even Robin Ely’s paper on Diversity and Difference is twenty three years old and her “new” and third paradigm ( and a good one) seems like new news since most firms are bumbling around thinking they need certain groups to sell to same demographics or worse in denial of differences without understanding the real work needed to be done.

Wider Society- Gains and Losses.

Over the years, I have written pieces on how culture affects what happens inside and outside of the office here on this site, even just last year in the review of the 2017 year, and it is the core backbone of how to advance women at work and better this and other societies. We all to a lesser or greater degree have bias  as whether we want to admit it or not, its cognitive process and we can blame our brains. It is what we are going to do about over-ridding our brain that interests me as that will divide the evolved and the unevolved on this topic.

These past two years we have seen the use of backlash as a fascinating mechanism ( not the only one, but one that should be named). The first reflex by some was the whitelash of having the first Black President (I use the word Black over African American because the reflex was based on that definition). The second reflex was the testing assumptions exercise regarding ambivalent sexism when it comes to patriarchy and power of the Presidential US election with Trump v. Hillary. The third reflex of creating the most diverse US government to confront the highest office’s sympathies and policies. The end result means a more diverse government, but it is still worth nothing Congress is still 80% male, 80% white and 92% Christian so there are parallels with the corporate construct of a few is enough, if not too many, while dominant legacy groups never get the same restrictive belief measurement. Double standards still are very much at play and the African writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who wrote “We Should all be Feminists” eloquently talks of this.

Those firms who do understand the whole picture of diversity as a change projects as opposed to Noah’s Ark are seeing the rewards of it, despite a continued backdrop of assumed power and authority by one gender and an overarching air. Yes, we have seen assumed authority and credibility challenged and lessened with #metoo, LGBT and other advocacy efforts creating bottom up change of outdated or inequitable decisions from flawed systems. But, there is still a strong tolerance of unchecked behaviors for one group over all others and it is dependent on which body and skin you were born into and very little else.

Conclusion

The system needs to always be addressed for transformational change to happen. Leaders and people have behaviors that create impactful actions and whatever the intention is, the impact is what matters. Structures and promotional mechanisms are a very important thing to do, start there because let’s face it, people didn’t stop smoking on airplanes because it was the “right thing to do”. Mindsets and incentivizing structures are more closely related than we think!

Read all Year In Reviews here (10 years worth to compare and measure organic change or the lack of it for yourself).

About Nicki Gilmour

Nicki founded theglasshammer.com in 2007 and has published more than 8000 articles on advancing women at work. She has undertaken deep study at Teachers College, Columbia University to understand the systemic cause and effect of power and authority as it pertains to diversity, performance and change in workplace and wider culture. Nicki has a masters in individual/organizational psychology with a specialization in change leadership and an executive coaching certification (masters level) specializing in the neuroscience of coaching regarding subconscious mind and the behavioral implications regarding goal setting and execution. Nicki has clients in Fortune 500 and financial services all over the world and can be reached nicki@theglasshammer.com

/by

Happy New Year: Tell your story, pass on your wisdom

,
Happy New Year 2019
Happy New Year from theglasshammer! Welcome 2019.

Instead of talking about New Year’s resolutions and the very interesting psychology behind them, I will ask you to simply take actions to help yourself and in turn, help others.

Firstly, tell your story. Although it might seem unremarkable to you, others might really be inspired to do more than they thought possible because you trail blazed for them. All of the women that we have profiled (over 1000) have had an amazing amount of experience and wisdom to share and since we are all different, it is always great to hear about different approaches to one’s career.

Secondly, pass on your wisdom and this can be formally as a mentor or a sponsor (by giving access to projects and people) or informally such as over a chat or a site like this one.

Thirdly, be yourself but know what that is exactly. You, according to you can be different to you, according to them. Work with a great coach (we offer coaching services, book an exploratory call here to see if there is a fit) to determine your behaviors, traits and skills and then how you are perceived in the social system you are operating in. How do you show up? What is your impact versus your intention on people and situations?

We are looking to you, the collective wisdom of the readership to contribute more this year. So if you would like to contribute with an op-ed, or a career article or be profiled, please let me know (write to nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com and put “editorial” in the title of the email).

As you know, we do not exist without sponsors, so if you would kindly ask your company to sponsor this site to show the organizational commitment and employer of choice commitment that they espouse to have, we would be very grateful.

Here is to a successful, happy, healthy, productive and stress-free 2019

Best Wishes
Nicki Gilmour
Founder and Publisher

/by