“The best way to shatter the glass ceiling, she said, is first to shatter the myth that you can have it all.” – Mrs Moneypenny
Monday is International Women's Day 2010. I had expected one of the FT writers, a Mrs Moneypenny, to write about it - because she touches on a range of interesting issues around women in business - but instead she chose to ignore it and focused on something else.
It's an unheard, unsaid, shameful truth: women can't have it all.
It's thankfully not because we are somehow inferior. No, it's because no one can. Superman doesn't exist. Superwoman, less so. No one can have it all. Men have never had it all - it's just that 99.9% of them like to think they do, and like to tell the world it. But the sad truth is that men made the decision to go for the career and to leave their families behind. There is a small but fighting group of stay at home dads, and while they get the occasional mention in some news article, they generally are fighting for parental rights and leave the work/life balance issue alone. Most men, it seems, don't feel the need to have it all.
So why do women? There are countless reports and surveys produced showing the lack of women on FTSE 100 boards, and even more reports (usually produced by our Scandinavian friends) quantifying the benefits of gender balanced boards. No wonder career driven women are so focused on entering that elusive echelon where they can increase profitability by their mere existence.
Unfortunately, the truth has finally emerged. You can go and sit on a board and be that superwoman, but something else has got to give. It doesn't take a genius to realise that it's going to be the family - if you managed to find the time to have one in the first place. Countless networks and organisations work to find ways to enable women to keep their hands and feet firmly in both worlds, but is it time to admit defeat? Perhaps women can't have it all.
“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.” – Douglas Adams
Last Friday, the Royal Institution made it's director, Susan Greenfield, redundant. The decision itself was far more melodramatic than that statement, from the information garnered by the media. It's said that staff were given thirty minutes notice to attend a meeting in which it was announced by the chief executive, that she was locked out of her grace-and-favour flat immediately, that she was offered a superb redundancy package which she turned down, that she had wrecked the prestigious institution's finances, that an 'old boys' club' culture was really behind it all.
Unsurprisingly, the bit that seems to have taken off is the 'old boys club' claims. Lady Greenfield made a statement saying that she will be presenting a claim in the employment tribunal which will include allegations of sex discrimination.
"I am the only female who has been appointed to this iconic post throughout the 211-year history of the Royal Institution, and I cannot see how this decision can be in the best interests of the organisation or its members."
Lady Greenfield is widely acknowledged to have been a fantastic asset to the Ri: she is clever, accessible and most importantly, can explain science to mere mortals. But science isn't accountancy, and finance always comes first - as the credit crunch should well have taught us all. All charities have to file their accounts with the Charity Commission. The mere fact that their accounts and annual return for 2008 were filed three months late speaks of poor internal governance, and the Trustee's report discusses issues around their finances.
Digging deeper into the return brings up the page with the Staff Costs, drilling specifically down to the employees earning over £60k. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the Director falls. Earlier pages also show the Director's Office expenses, with another ~£207k to it's name.
The Ri says that they can no longer afford the post of Director, hence it - and she - is being made redundant. But do those numbers add up? Or is it really a matter of personal actions: she spent too much money, they were too narrow-minded to take any more of her supposed drama (the tabloid interested in Greenfield's marital affairs was particularly uncalled for), and so it was inevitable that this would be the parting of their ways.
It's one hell of a way to make a point - fire her, logic would say, don't stop yourselves from being able to have a director altogether. While I'm sure that they could construe a new position that does half the job (with half the salary) with a new title to avoid the issue of filling a redundant post, it's also the type of behaviour that gives the corporate world it's bad name. Following suit seems unwise.
If this all is a personal matter, as Greenfield claims, then the Trustees and Executives will have to move fast to restore their balance. It's a shame to loose Greenfield, but it would be a far greater loss to lose the Ri altogether. In proving the Ri wrong, she may well hammer the final nail in their coffin - and that's without sex discrimination tagged on.
Ironically enough, as I wrote this, I received an email from womenintechnology.co.uk inviting me to their next event, 'Women of Substance: Inspiring Women in STEM', hosted by none other than the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Wonderful timing. I wonder if this will increase or decrease the size of the audience?
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, is one of those books that seems to be everywhere and yet barely anyone I know has read it. I've been doing a lot of walking lately (in preparation for the 20 mile London Night Hike, please donate if you can!), and decided to grab the audiobook of Outliers to entertain me.
One of the more prolific statements that he makes is around the 10,000 rule: the concept that the key to success is practicing for at least 10,000 hours. Gladwell claims that it's true for everyone, from the violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music, to chess players, to Bill Gates. If you believe his theory, then you also have to agree with corollary. It doesn't matter if you're naturally a genius in the area - the 10,000 hours is still required to be successful.
Unsurprisingly, this all made me think about gender demographics in technology. Remind me, why don't we have many women?
They got lost, when they didn't get their 10,000 hours of practice during the 10 years of schooling that their male counterparts did. They were too busy being told to take English instead of Maths and trying to fit in with their peers.
They got lost, when they went to university for 4 years and ended up being put in the role of organiser and presenter and report writer instead of doing technical work during projects.
They got lost, when they took that career break to raise children and missed thousands of hours of technical and management experience.
The first two are things to be remedied, things that have been identified time and time again, and have a million and one projects in the works in the hopes of addressing them.
The last issue is something we have to learn to deal with. Women bear children; this is way things have always been and will remain for a very, very long time. The choice of whether to stay at home with your children is a personal one, but the key word is choice. It should be a fair choice, where there is no undue bias because your job doesn't suffer and neither do your children. Technology is important, but so is the next generation.
But now we know that taking that break automatically puts you behind the competition, because it doesn't matter how good your company's maternity policies are and it doesn't matter how good you are. You will still lose the advantage because you have to make up that time somehow, and that can only be done by working harder and longer, which new mothers usually aren't in the market for. So it will take longer to make that time up. The determined ones will make it, as they should, and the ones that decide it's not that important to them, won't.
My gut instinct tells me that career breaks will continue to be taken by women. I don't think this is an issue that needs to be tackled on that front.
Instead, the shoe has moved to the other foot. As men campaign for better paternity rights and start taking longer breaks themselves, will we ever reach a point where the playing field evens out across the genders?
“The future [...] is digital, and Xerox will continue to be the digital printing partner of choice.” – Anne Mulcahy
When the issue of women comes up in a professional environment, it's quite common for men to ask why we need all of this attention focused on the issue. In my previous job, it was pointed out to me that not only did I report to a woman, but her manager, and her manager's manager were also women - with the global head of the extended team (based in America) also a woman. With such a long chain of women, they said, was there really anything for me to moan about?
But for every such line of women, the company had another 10 to match it of men. What's more, those hierarchies stretched much further than mine ever did - because it was a man that had the top job. This is why it still matters.
Of course, women are breaking through every day. Ursula Burns' ascent to the position of CEO of Xerox has been widely reported, not least because she is the first female African-American to lead a major public company, and because she is taking over the reigns from another woman. Anne Mulcahy is often credited with rescuing the company known for photocopying, although I don't believe the usage of the word 'xerox' as a verb has extended beyond America.
There are some similarities between the women: apart from the obvious business acumen, Mulcahy has two grown sons while Burns has a 16- and 20-year old, but that seems to be where it ends. Mulcahy joined the firm as a field representative upon completion of a BA degree in English and Journalism, while Burns started as an engineering summer intern and went on to complete her BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering.
While it goes to show that perhaps one really should do what they love at university, because it can all lead down the same road at the end of the day, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was pleased that Ursula Burns is a scientific woman. Her academic achievements are impressive on their own, but she also worked her way up from being raised by a single mother in a New York City housing project. Now that's a role model for future generations!
“Career women should be honoured [...] they are often trying to manage a household and raise a family at the same time.” – Mrs Moneypenny
It's been another busy week for London women, although for once I wasn't able to get into the thick of it as usual.
It all happened on Tuesday, starting with Women Who Tech. One of the few teleconferences I know of it's kind, it's essentially a series of webinars so that participants can dial in from all around the world. Presentations and podcasts should be put up on the website, so if there's anything that you wish that you had made it to, the chance may well come around. It was followed up by a series of After Parties in the real world for those in the right locations.
Also on Tuesday, in a physical building in London, there were 2000+ women gathering for Deutsche Bank's Annual Women in European Business conference. The Glass Hammer has an excellent recap of the event. With charitable giftbags, a great line-up of luminaries and speakers, it seems universally agreed that they can do no wrong.
A quick look at the bigger picture shows that Deutsche is even putting its money where its mouth is, by creating the Deutsche Bank Women's Scholarship Programme, which funds three female MBA students and one Masters in Finance student at the London Business School with £20,000 each.
Of course, they're not the only ones doing this at LBS. Citi's charitable arm, The Citi Foundation, also has a scholarship of £20,000 for one MBA student a year. The only other external company to match this is The Forté Foundation, which sponsors two MBA students a year. Forté, in its own words, is "a consortium of major corporations and top business schools that has become a powerful change agent in educating and directing talented women toward leadership roles in business."
Sometimes, all I see is so much information around recruiting girls into science/technology/business/what have you and so much around the other extreme of the lack of executive women at senior levels. I wonder where my peers and I fall in: women at the early stages of their careers, that need incentive and motivation to bypass those glass ceilings like they weren't even there. This is what Forté does. They encourage young professionals into business careers, they have a strong range of partnerships which they leverage to show the value of an MBA for the working woman, and they also support research on the topics that matter.
My favourite FT Weekend columnist, Mrs Moneypenny, gave a talk at my firm last year at the behest of our women's network. I watched the recording of the event recently, and listened to her say that she became pregnant shortly after getting married at the age of 26, when she also happened to be doing an MBA part-time. Now that's impressive. While I certainly don't expect to be pregnant in a year's time, it might be an idea to start exploring that MBA - especially if those scholarships are still going.
“What’s the point in pouring a fortune into educating girls, watching them exceed boys, when it comes to appointing leaders, these are drawn from just half the population” – Ansgar Gabrielsen
Last week, yet another article popped up asking, Why don't more women work in IT? It covers a lot of the familiar arguments, including not enough girls taking the right A-levels (despite performing well at GCSE level), which I’ve discussed enough on this blog, and a lack of role models. That's a concept that’s hopefully going to be blown out of the water on March 24th aka Ada Lovelace Day, when Suw Charman-Anderson's 1300+ army of bloggers, myself included, all hit Post and write about a woman that they admire in technology.
The nice thing about this article is that it links this to the issue at the forefront of everyone’s minds – especially men. How are we going to get out of the current economic situation? By not ignoring this fabulous talent pool at our disposal, by looking at the evidence that shows that companies that have gender-balanced executive management teams perform better.
The New York Times published an article a couple days ago titled Mistresses of the Universe, pulling together studies looking at women in the banking sector in particular and how external factors affected decision making in both genders. Men unsurprisingly take higher risks when under financial pressure and surrounded by other males, while women are unaffected in this way. At this time of extreme financial pressure, which would you like at the top?
But it's not a recent phenomenon by any means. The FT has an article from a year and a half ago, succinctly saying Top women tip the scales. Research from McKinsey showed "better-than-average financial performance by European companies with the highest proportion of women in influential leadership roles".
The study also showed something that seems like common sense, but perhaps needs to be articulated to be realised: it takes at least three women to sit on a board in order to lose the token-woman 'female director' association. It is only when they are viewed as proper directors in their own right, and not as women that are conspiring with each other, that they can move on to enhance the boardroom environment and bring the diversity of experience that they have to offer to the table. This is what eventually leads to improving the performance of the company.
With that in mind, you can almost understand the rationale behind Norway. Norway, of course, introduced legislation in 2006 requiring that 40% of all boardroom positions in companies listed on the Oslo stock exchange are held by women. They gave the ~500 companies that didn’t have any women 2 years to balance their boardroom. In 2008, there was only a handful left that hadn’t complied.
Does that mean that Norway’s businesses are the most successful? The next interesting thing to throw out is that positive discrimination has been shown to hurt a company’s profitability. Again, it’s common sense why: if people are being hired based on gender rather than ability in order to reach a target (so that their company isn’t shut down, in Norway’s case), then it’s likely that the most capable candidates are being missed out and thus a lower performing group of individuals are at the top.
Where does that leave Norway? Who knows. After all of the media coverage when the law was enacted in 2006, there’s barely anything analysing the results in 2008. I'm sure research will eventually surface, but in the meantime, I’m going to stick to looking at why women don’t make it on their own. Government may mean well, but sometimes these things have to happen a bit more naturally in order to ensure that a fully developed talent pool is at the ready to take the helm, rather than everyone who just happens to be in the right place at the right time.
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