Changing Companies’ Minds About Women

Leaders serious about getting more women into senior management need a hard-edged approach to overcome the invisible barriers holding them back.   

Despite corporate commitment to advancing women’s careers, progress appears to have stalled. The percentage of women on boards and senior executive teams remains stuck at around 15% in many countries, and just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
The last generation of workplace innovations — policies to support women with children, networks to help women navigate careers, formal professional development sponsorship programmes — broke structural barriers holding women back. The next frontier is toppling invisible barriers: mindsets held by managers — men and women — that are rarely acknowledged.
    When senior leaders commit themselves to gender diversity, they mean it — but in the heat of the moment, entrenched beliefs cause old behaviours to resurface. Often, in our experience, executives perceive women as a greater risk for senior positions, fail to give tough feedback to help them grow, or hesitate to offer working mothers opportunities with more travel and stress.
    A survey by McKinsey conducted earlier this year indicated that although a majority of women who make it to senior roles have a real desire to lead, few think they have meaningful support to do so, and fewer think that they are in line to move up.
    Our ideas for breaking this cycle rest on our experience with senior executives, discussions with 30 diversity experts, and interviews with leaders at companies that have been on this journey for years, including Pitney Bowes, 38% of whose vicepresidents are women; Shell, where more than a quarter of supervisors and professional staff worldwide are women; and
Time Warner, where more than 40% of the senior executives in its operating divisions are women and where the share of women in senior roles has jumped 30% in the past six years. Great progress, but even these companies admit how much further they have to go.
Invisible, Unconscious & in the Way Our research shows that women comprise roughly 53% of entry-level professional employees in the largest US industrial corporations. But according to Catalyst, a leading advocacy group for women, they hold only 37% of middlemanagement positions, 28% of vice-president and senior-managerial roles, and 14% of executive committee seats.
McKinsey research shows similar numbers for women on executive committees outside the US — from 17% in Sweden to just 2% in Germany and India. Our analysis reveals that at every step along the US corporate-talent pipeline, the odds of advancement for men are about twice those for women. Nearly four times as many men as women at large companies make the jump from the executive committee to CEO.
Despite the best intentions of HR departments and individual executives, the experience of women starts to diverge from that of their male peers: Less opportunity for professional growth. Unintended performance bias and softer feedback. Fewer sponsors offering fewer opportunities. Lowered ambition.
A word about the role women play in this cycle: they start ambitious, and on reaching senior levels retain that ambition. But women also turn down advancement opportunities for reasons ranging from commitments outside work to risk aversion for positions requiring new skills to a desire to stay put in roles that provide personal meaning. By addressing mindsets holding women back, corporate leaders can reshape the talent pipeline, making it likelier that more women will retain their ambition.
Changing Companies’ Minds No initiative can be the “silver bullet” to advance women. The whole organisation must change. This goal requires real engagement up and down the line, including from women.
Corporate leaders need to see these changes as no less important than a major strategic or operational challenge. Efforts must be integrated into the organisation’s daily work through goals, performance monitoring, processes that force tough conversations, and serious skill building.
Make it Personal As a senior executive, you are already influencing your company’s approach. Shell’s executive vice-president of global supply and distribution, Peggy Montana, says, “When you look at corporate mindsets, change starts at the top. I haven’t seen change in diversity start from middle management.”
    In the early 1980s, Pitney Bowes CEO George Harvey learned that the most productive newly hired salespeople were women; many previously schoolteachers. He visited sales offices and discovered women “writing personal notes to their customers with a lot of conviction” — a practice that seemed to be driving sales.
    According to Pitney Bowes executive vice-president Johnna Torsone, Harvey’s recognition of the value of these committed women made him “determined to open up an environment that allowed people to come in who hadn’t had a true opportunity on a level playing field.”
    Their motivation would “increase the competitive environment for the men and for everybody else in the organisation”. The end result, Torsone explains, “was an HR strategy based on business”. 

This powerful idea resonates with our experience: companies are more likely to transform mindsets if they build their own case grounded in the impact women are having there. Harvey’s commitment also highlights the importance of having leaders start this journey by changing their own mindsets.

10 Secrets of Successful LEADERS

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” But, becoming a great leader isn’t easy. Successfully maneuvering a team through the ups and downs of starting a new business can be one of the greatest challenges a small-business owner faces.

Leadership is one of the areas that many entrepreneurs tend to overlook.

“You work hard to develop your product or service. You fight to solve your financial issues. You go out and promote your business and sell your product. But you don't think enough about leading your own people and finding the best staff,” Maxwell says.

It turns out, the skills and talents necessary to guide your team in the right direction can be simple, and anyone with the determination can develop them. Here’s a list of 10 tips drawn from the secrets of successful leaders.

1. Assemble a dedicated team.
Your team needs to be committed to you and the business. Successful entrepreneurs have not only social and selling smarts, but also the know-how to hire effectively. “A colossal business idea simply isn't enough. You have to be able to identify, attract and retain talent who can turn your concept into a register-ringing success”

When putting your team together, look for people whose values are aligned with the purpose and mission of your company. “Having people on your team who have tenacity and a candid spirit is really important." 

2. Overcommunicate.
This one’s a biggie. Even with a staff of only five or 10, it can be tough to know what’s going on with everyone. In an effort to overcommunicate, Bates compiles a weekly news update she calls a Friday Forecast, and emails it to her staff. “My team is always surprised at all the good news I send out each week,” Bates says. “It makes everyone feel like you really have a lot of momentum, even in difficult times.”

3. Don’t assume.
When you run a small business, you might assume your team understands your goals and mission -- and they may. But, everybody needs to be reminded of where the company’s going and what things will look like when you get there. Your employees may ask, “What’s in it for me?” It’s important to paint that picture for your team. Take the time to really understand the people who are helping you build your business.

“Entrepreneurs have the vision, the energy, and they’re out there trying to make it happen. But, so often with their staff, they are assuming too much,It’s almost like they think their enthusiasm by extension will be infectious -- but it’s not. You have to bring people into your world and communicate really proactively.”

4. Be authentic.
Good leaders instill their personality and beliefs into the fabric of their organization. If you be yourself, and not try to act like someone else, and surround yourself with people who are aligned with your values, your business is more likely to succeed.

“Every business is different and every entrepreneur has her own personality,If you’re authentic, you attract the right people to your organization -- employees and customers.”

5. Know your obstacles.
Most entrepreneurs are optimistic and certain that they’re driving toward their goals. But, it’s a short-sighted leader who doesn’t take the time to understand his obstacles.

“You need to know what you’re up against and be able to plan around those things,It’s folly to think that just because you’ve got this energy and enthusiasm that you’re going to be able to conquer all. It’s much smarter to take a step back and figure out what your obstacles are, so the plan that you’re putting into place takes that into account.”

6. Create a 'team charter.'
Too many new teams race down the road before they even figure out who they are, where they’re going, and what will guide their journey,just calling together a team and giving them a clear charge does not mean the team will succeed.

“It’s important to create a set of agreements that clearly states what the team is to accomplish, why it is important and how the team will work together to achieve the desired results.The charter provides a record of common agreements and can be modified as the business grows and the team’s needs change.”

7. Believe in your people.
Entrepreneurial leaders must help their people develop confidence, especially during tough times. As Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Leaders are dealers in hope." That confidence comes in part from believing in your team, says Maxwell, who is based in West Palm Beach, Fla. “I think of my people as 10s, I treat them like 10s, and as a result, they try to perform like 10s,” he says. “But believing in people alone isn't enough. You have to help them win.”

8. Dole out credit. 

A good salesperson knows what the sweetest sound in the world is: The sound of their name on someone else's lips. But too many entrepreneurs think it's either the crinkle of freshly minted currency, or the dull thud of a competitor's body hitting the pavement.

“Many entrepreneurs are too in love with their own ideas and don't know how to distribute credit. “A good quarterback always gives props to his offensive line.”

9. Keep your team engaged.
Great leaders give their teams challenges and get them excited about them.Pointing towards the  example of a small pizza shop in a moderate-sized town that was killing a big fast-food chain in sales. The big difference between the chain and the small pizza joint was the leader.

Every week he gathered his teenage employees in a huddle and excitedly asked them: “What can we do this week that we’ve never done before?” The kids loved the challenge. They started texting all their friends whenever a pizza special was on. They took the credit-card machine to the curb so passing motorists could buy pizza right off the street. They loaded up a truck with hot pizzas and sold them at high-school games. The money poured in and the store owner never had problems with employee turnover, says Covey, who is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

10. Stay calm.
An entrepreneur has to backstop the team from overreacting to short-term situations. This is particularly important now, when news of the sour economic environment is everywhere.

“The media has been hanging black crepe paper since 2008,but look at all the phenomenal companies and brands that were born in downturns, names like iPod, GE and Federal Express.”