I’ve come across International Women’s Day in March before, but I didn’t know that March 2014 is Women’s History Month until something landed in my inbox last week from Getty Images (who have produced the ‘Lean In Collection’ of images depicting women, girls & those supporting them).
Let’s stay on-topic and talk about Women in organisations. Wendy Montague, Head of Leadership & Talent Practice at Hay Group Pacific writes that it’s no coincidence that companies with more women in managerial and top executive positions are higher performing companies (as evidenced by research conducted by McKinsey (Women Matter) and Grant Thornton). This research showed that companies with more women in top positions achieve 16 per cent higher return on sales and 26 per cent higher return on invested capital.
But even in light of these findings, the number of women in top managerial roles in Australia has been declining over the last couple of years. I’ve been trawling through research and data, and here are some current thoughts on what’s happening (clearly not a definitive list!):
- Many roads are blocked to women by the ‘traditional’ mind-sets of both men and women. When push comes to shove, we tend to revert back to old habits.
- Women remain highly confident about their performance and abilities but lack faith in their company’s ability to support their ambitions.
- Women turn down advancement opportunities for various reasons ranging from commitments outside work to risk aversion for positions that demand new skills, or a desire to stay put in roles that provide personal meaning.
- Research shows that women executives score twice as high as male counterparts on empathy and conflict management capability, and five times higher on emotional self-awareness – all traits that innovative and collaborative leaders need.
- Companies require women to adapt in order to ‘fit in’ with outmoded organisation processes and culture, in spite of many companies adopting a positive diversity stance.
The solution appears not to lie in even better processes and systems, better analysis or devotion to controlling and managing the bottom line. The solution lies in how you organise, manage and maximise the contribution of your people.
Returning again to Wendy Montague’s article she sums up this way: “Harnessing the energies of both men and women requires a different approach to management. It means abandoning many long-held management practices and acknowledging that strictly defined individual or divisional responsibilities get in the way of team work and cooperation. Remodelling an organisation so that it energises people means recognising financial results aren’t the be all and end all, that coercion destroys creativity, that systems and processes crush innovation and that the role of the individual needs to be more than to conform and work harder and longer.”
It’s a radical approach, particularly at a time when many businesses are still struggling post-GFC and don’t have the luxury of not considering financial results as the most important criteria in keeping their business afloat. But interesting, none the less.
McKinsey explains that the companies with good diversity share four things in common:
- A CEO who genuinely and passionately believes in gender diversity.
- A culture that supports the advancement of women, and one that demonstrates it has done so over time.
- An empowered HR function to develop systemic improvements to talent development, succession planning and how you measure results.
- Walk the talk by appointing a qualified woman to the Board who can help mentor other senior women through the organisation.
How does your company address the diversity issue? Does it differ as you go further up in the organisation? What could you do differently to improve opportunities for high-flying women? As always, I’d love to have your comments and hear what it happening.
Further Reading: