Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
Читать онлайн книгу.
Find more digital content or join the discussion on www.hbr.org.
Copyright 2014 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation
All rights reserved.
All cartoons are courtesy Roger Beale.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to [email protected], or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.
The web addresses in this book were correct at the time of the book’s publication but may be subject to change.
1
Foreword
Foreword
As a research-based company, Bayer usually sees innovation through the lens of scientific or technical breakthroughs. Yet the company’s approach to leadership can also be considered innovative.
For the past two years, based on the advice that appears in Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business, Bayer has been quietly building awareness and skills to lead across cultures and genders across all its global teams. Many of our corporate neighbors are responding to the legal and political pressures of European gender quotas by implementing initiatives focused on women.
I share Avivah Wittenberg-Cox’s idea that it’s time for companies to take a much broader look at the realities of changing markets and the demographics of talent. The globalization of markets and the dramatic increase in the number of women among the world’s educated workforce are drivers for any multinational company interested in growth and innovative responses to fast-changing conditions.
Many of Bayer’s senior leadership teams worldwide have held the kind of strategic debates described in this book. They focused on why and how we want to adjust the balance of national cultures and genders in the company’s management. Division heads, country managers, and functional teams have used these sessions to analyze and understand shifting global and national trends and statistics in both talent and markets—and craft action plans to adapt mind-sets, processes, and plans.
This book offers clear guidelines on how to create sustainable gender and cultural balance. Notably, that initiatives should be leader-led, strategically focused, and business-driven. Accountability for change must lie with leaders to define and implement the balance that makes the most sense to their changing business realities. And CEOs must recognize that it takes time to build awareness and skills for managers to effectively lead across cultures and genders.
Based on a recently completed survey of a cross section of the organization’s leaders, senior management at Bayer is now aligned on the need for change. There is also a widespread recognition that this is the responsibility of leaders and managers—not HR or diversity departments. This investment should now accelerate the already-improving balance we are seeing in management.
This is the beginning of a journey. Bayer’s talent pipeline, the profile of our senior executives, and the company’s management composition have all steadily evolved over the past two years. The goal is not to change overnight. Instead, we are committed to making steady progress in reflecting the markets we serve and the talent we have internally. I am personally committed to this objective, and I recognize that leadership is the key to unlocking the benefits that better balance will bring to Bayer. This book shows the way, but the buck stops with every CEO.
—Marijn Dekkers, CEO, Bayer
1
Reframe the Debate
Ask a roomful of men what the most significant event of the twentieth century was, and you’ll hear about man’s magnificent first steps on the moon. Ask a roomful of women, and you’ll hear it’s the invention of the pill. History is inevitably shaped by the language and lens through which it’s seen. So, this book will argue, is your future.
We are at an exciting, unprecedented moment in human history. The twentieth century saw the rise of women, a change that universally transformed life as we know it. The shift to a more equal balance of power between men and women is resulting in one of humanity’s most profound revolutions. The consequences are political, demographic, social, cultural, and—critically—economic.
The business world has not yet fully embraced the consequences or the potential that this new gender balance offers. So competitive edge lies in first-mover advantage: In the twenty-first century, companies that get it right and leverage the potential of women as both talent and market will profit massively by the huge numbers at play. IBM, General Motors, and Lockheed Martin are all companies that have recently appointed their first female CEOs. They are trying to tap into innovation, new leadership styles, and improved relationships with evolving customer bases.
Economic crises and crises of leadership are calling for new ways of seeing—and running—economies and companies. 20-first is one of the world’s leading gender consultancies. Over the past decade, we have worked with many of the world’s leading multinational companies, in almost every sector, and in nearly every country. All of our clients are working on developing new and more balanced leadership styles, more customer centricity, more understanding of growth market subtleties, and more innovation. Some business leaders recognize the transformational opportunities that can be unleashed by a strategic management of gender. For some, it is a key lever to achieve strategic objectives. Others still don’t even see it as business relevant. Most of today’s Western managers have been taught that equality between the sexes means eliminating differences—of opportunity, treatment, salary, and so on. But to take full advantage of the specific strengths women can bring to a company, leaders must understand and maximize the complementary differences between men and women. Managers who are effectively able to harness these differences will be the ones to grow, innovate, and excel in the twenty-first century. In addition to the ethical discourses around equality that have powered the staggering changes of the past decades, the new global reality makes gender balance one of the biggest—and I will argue one of the easiest—ways to make companies grow, innovate, and excel sustainably.
This will require a change of frame and vocabulary. Let me start by defining some key terms: “gender bilingualism” and “gender balance.” They are key to building the organizations of the future.
“Gender bilingual” organizations and managers have developed the management competencies to understand the differences between men and women so that they are able to effectively understand, connect, and communicate with 100 percent of potential customers, end-users, and stakeholders. They are also skilled at being able to attract, retain, and develop 100 percent of the available talent pool. Consider: when companies invest in China, Russia, or Brazil, they know they need to learn the language and culture of the market they are targeting. In a century where women have become the dominant talent pool and the dominant market makers, why aren’t more companies eager to learn the language and culture of women and how it differs from those of men?
“Gender balance” does not necessarily mean numerical equality. Instead, it means a conscious analysis of the gender mix that reflects the available talent pool and sustainably supports strategic goals. It recognizes that gender matters as a lever for business performance, that 60 percent of global university graduates are now women, and that under-utilizing the majority of the talent is not a good guarantee of future success. As one CEO told me, the goal does “not necessarily have to be 50/50 but should be closer to 50/50 than to 85/15.”
This book is written for progressive leaders who are interested in harnessing the rise of educated, empowered women in the workforce—as well as in the consumer market. I have had the pleasure of working