Forster N. - Maximum performance (2005)(en)

230 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

•women consumers may boycott their products and services;

•their best women staff will leave to join other companies or, as they are doing in increasing numbers throughout the world, establish their own businesses;

•workplace diversity will be reduced, leading to lower morale, less creativity, groupthink and, ultimately, lower organizational performance and productivity.

Direct discrimination can be very expensive for organizations. The costs are not only financial penalties or damaging publicity for a company. In fact, it is almost passé to talk about discrimination these days; it is better known now as ‘very bad people management’. For example, one study in the United States rated the performance of the Standard and Poor’s 500 companies on equal opportunity factors, including the recruitment and promotion of women and minorities and the companies’ policies on discrimination. It found that companies rated in the bottom 100 for equal opportunities had an average of an 8 per cent return on investment. Companies rating in the top 100 had an average return of 18 per cent. Further evidence, compiled by the 1995 Glass Ceiling Commission, shows that the average annual return on investment of those companies that did not discriminate against women was more than double that of companies with poor records of hiring and promoting women (Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). Other surveys have shown that poor equal-opportunity practices also contribute to high staff turnover and absenteeism (Goward, 1999). Two studies referred to in earlier chapters, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’s

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies and Collins’ Good to Great also add weight to this argument. All the companies they identified have made a major commitment to equality of opportunity and to promoting women into senior management positions. And recall that all of these were among the most visionary, successful and profitable companies in the world during the 20th century.

Alan Greenspan, the US Federal Reserve Chairman, has argued that discrimination is bad for business, and suggested that evening up pay scales for women and minorities has to be achieved now, not at some indeterminate point in the future. He also made these telling comments: ‘By removing the non-economic distortions that arise as a result of discrimination, we can generate higher returns on both human and physical capital. Discrimination is against the interest of business. Yet, business people often practise it. In the end the costs are higher, less real output is produced and the nation’s wealth-accumula- tion is reduced’ (cited in The Australian Financial Review, 28 July 2000). The message is clear: to be competitive, organizations need to take advantage of the full range of talents of their staff, regardless of their

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 231

gender (or cultural background). Good equal opportunity policies make good business sense.

Another compelling reason for promoting the interests of women can be found in research that has emerged from business schools over the last decade, which has clearly demonstrated how beneficial employee diversity can be for organizations. Homogeneous cultures stagnate, and different perspectives are required for creativity and innovation. As the Enterprising Nation Report, on leadership and management in Australia, commented eight years ago, ‘Only by entrenching diversity will employees be optimally equipped to deal with the competitive challenges expected of them by the international marketplace and by the Australian community’ (Industry Taskforce on Leadership and Management Skills, 1995: 69). This report argued that, if Australian companies were to succeed in the future, they would have to develop highly educated and innovative workforces, characterized by gender and cultural diversity and a global focus. To achieve this, they would need to start dismantling the inward-looking, Anglo-Saxon and paternalistic views of their male workforces and their antiquated views about the role of women.

In some sectors, such as the military, this is precisely what is happening in many countries. This is true of North America, all European countries in the EEC and Australasia. The move to recruit more women has been driven in part by the fact that all countries in these regions have signed up to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. However, in large measure, this move is not driven by legal imperatives or by idealism and altruism, but by self-interest. The armed services of these countries are recruiting more women because fewer young men are joining up and because they want to draw from a wider pool of talent. There is also a growing belief in the military that women have special skills to offer. For example, women are considered to have quicker comprehension, are better at multi-tasking and have more dexterity and agility when compared to men. These are increasingly important skills as warfare becomes more reliant on technology, computerization, smart weapon systems, robotics and remote warfare capabilities. Consequently, women in the American and Australian armed services now work in 98 per cent of operational categories (Garran, 1998, 2001a; Maddison, 1999). They are still excluded from the infantry, artillery, combat engineering, naval clearance diving and airfield defence guards. Given that women already work as commercial divers and as airport security police in the civilian workforce, it is probable that women will gain entry to these positions in the military in the not too distant future.

232 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

It was noted earlier in this chapter that many more women are opting for self-employment in North America, the UK and Australasia. Several studies have shown that one of the main reasons given by women for starting up their own businesses is that it enables them to enjoy a better balance between their work and family lives (for example, Wellington, 1998). The Australian Census on Women in Leadership, released in November 2002, revealed that ‘the inflexibility of some companies made it extremely difficult for women to juggle careers and motherhood. Others had blokey cultures, meaning women worked twice as hard as men to be accepted as equals. As a result, frustrated women were quitting to run small businesses’ (Harris, 2002). What should really concern organizations that turn a blind eye to this loss of talented staff is the evidence showing that women entrepreneurs establish small businesses that are more successful and profitable than those started by men (Sarney, 1997; Hunter and Reid, 1996). It follows, logically, that not only do many organizations lose good women employees because of outdated employment practices; these are often the people they can least afford to lose these days – their entrepreneurs and innovators. Furthermore, organizations that allow this to happen lose intellectual capital, managerial know-how and experienced mentors for junior staff and they have to expend additional time and resources recruiting new staff to replace those who have left (which, as we saw in Chapter 4, costs about $US60 000 per employee). Another important reason for promoting more women into senior management positions is that they may be less venal and corrupt than men. As Kim Cambell, the former Prime Minister of Canada, has observed:

The qualities that are defined as masculine are the same as those defined as the qualities of leadership. There is virtually no overlap between the qualities ascribed to femininity and those to leadership. Yet, in several studies, results show that, when you have a critical mass of women in an organization, you have less corruption. Peru and Mexico have even implemented initiatives based on such thinking. Lest you think that all we aspire to for the world can be accomplished by male dominated organizations, I have only to say to you: Enron, Taliban, Roman Catholic Church.

(Cited by Schlosser, 2002: 70)

To this list we could also add Tycho, Worldcom, Global Crossing, HIH, One.Tel, Parmalat and others – companies we will return to in Chapter 12.

In addition, other research surveys in the UK, the USA and Australasia have consistently shown that about 35 per cent of women have been the victims of some form of discrimination, sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances at work, while an even higher percentage (around 50 per cent) have been at the receiving end of some form of

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 233

unwelcome sexual ‘overtures’. In professions such as the military and the police this is still an endemic part of their organizational cultures. In the UK, the number of women in the police service actually fell between 1993 and 1998 because of an endemic and deeply based male culture of routine discrimination (Montgomery, 1998). Between May 1995 and May 1997, sexual harassment claims cost the US Federal Government $US267 million. A survey by Working Woman magazine found that sexual harassment costs a typical Fortune 500 company, with 23 000 employees, about $US6.7 million a year. One in ten women in the USA have, at some point in their careers, quit a job because of sexual harassment (surveys cited in Moston and Engelberg-Moston, 1997). Several high-profile males have also had accusations of sexual harassment levelled against them, including several sports stars in the UK and the USA, the former US president, Bill Clinton, and more recently Arnold Schwartzenegger. These allegations featured prominently in Garry Trudeau’s Doonsbury cartoon series during 2003–4, with Schwartzenegger being portrayed as the ‘Gropenfuhrer’.

While increasing competition, the need to recruit and retain the best staff, and to get the best out of one’s employees are the carrots, litigation is now the stick. In fact, this is often a very large and painful stick. Here are a few examples of this:

Today, one in five civil law suits in the US federal courts concerns harassment or discrimination, compared to one in twenty a decade ago.

(The Economist, 2002c).

The finance industry is renowned for its loutish behaviour, so it should come as no surprise that it seems to have more than its fair share of unsavoury practices against women. Last month, American Express agreed to pay $US31 million in a lawsuit for sex and age discrimination filed on behalf of more than 4000 women. Merril Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney, two investment banks, settled two sex discriminations cases in 1999, at a combined cost of $US250 million in damages to 900 former and current female employees.

(Abridged from The Economist, 2002c, and Stowell, 1999)

This month’s sexual discrimination payout to a Victorian policewoman has sent a timely warning to corporate Australia of the need to evaluate and monitor anti-discrimination policies and training. In many cases, the theory and practice are worlds apart. Policewoman Narelle McKenna received a $A125 000 payout in the Victorian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal after it was found that she had been the victim of sexual harassment, discrimination and victimisation. The tribunal was told that while working night-shift at the Bairnsdale police station, the Senior Constable was groped by a fellow officer, asked for oral sex and dragged kicking and screaming into a cell.

(Johns, 1998)

The US Unit of Japanese car-maker Mitsubishi has agreed to pay out a record $US34 million to settle a sexual harassment suit filed on behalf of 300

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female employees. The settlement, the largest ever in a sexual harassment case in the USA, was announced yesterday [ ] the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America in April 1996, alleging ‘repeated, routine, generalised, serious and pervasive’ sexual harassment of female workers at the company’s plant in Normal, Illinois, which was ‘known and supported by management’ [ ] EEOC Chairman Paul Igasaki said the ground-breaking settlement, ‘should provide a model for employers to emulate in dealing with the scourge of sexual harassment’. Stressing that Mitsubishi was ‘not unique’, he warned: ‘Other employers should take heed . . . The EEOC will aggressively pursue cases like this.’

(Associated Press, 1998)

A woman detective who suffered four and a half years of sexual harassment has won what is believed to be the largest British settlement in such a case, £150,000. At Miss Mazurkiewicz’s tribunal in Reading, the panel ruled unanimously that the former Thames Valley police detective has been sexually harassed and then victimised when she complained. A subsequent internal police inquiry found no evidence to substantiate her allegations, but the tribunal ruled in favour of the officer, nicknamed ‘massive cleavage’ by her male colleagues.

(Montgomery, 1998)

A former ANZ finance manager who was called ‘mother hen’ by male colleagues and had her department labelled ‘a nursery’ by male colleagues was awarded a record $A125 000 sex discrimination payout yesterday [ ] Ms Dunn-Dyer said legal action would not succeed in eliminating this kind of workplace behaviour. That battle would only be won when companies educated their staff and attitudes changed from the top down.

(Balogh and Carruthers, 1997)

A former female firefighter yesterday accepted £200,000 in damages in one of the largest payouts for sexual discrimination, three years after a tribunal decided that her life had been devastated by harassment. Tania Clayton, 31, was victimised by male colleagues where she was called ‘a tart’ and ‘a stupid f*****g cow’, while being ordered to make tea for firemen. When her case came before an industrial tribunal in 1994, the Hereford and Worcester Fire Service was condemned for the ‘most appalling discrimination’.

(Veash, 1997)

In several well-publicized cases, those organizations that have been sued for discrimination, in the USA, the UK and Australasia, were household name companies, and many of these had invested significant time and resources in introducing formal policies to combat discrimination and sexual harassment. However, what many of these companies failed to realize was that this kind of behaviour will persist as long as it remains an acceptable part of the culture of an organization and acceptable in the minds of male employees. Formal policies mean nothing unless these are embraced by all employees and at all levels of an organization. In order for this to happen, these have to be supported by comprehensive educational programmes,

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 235

that reveal how ultimately degrading and destructive these entrenched attitudes and behaviours are, and how they can damage both the bottom-line performance of a company and its reputation with the general public. And, like other initiatives, it must be subjected to ongoing review and evaluation (described towards the end of this chapter).

In conclusion, the main reason for changing negative attitudes and behaviours is that it is good for business: it helps to promote employee morale, motivation and performance, enables organizations to be more responsive to the markets and environments they operate in and, ultimately, enhances business productivity and profitability. This is true even if we might not consider moral, ethical and legal reasons to be sufficiently important. If this is a difficult proposition to accept, then just watch as your most able and talented women, and/or minority group employees, leave to work for organizations where ability, character and performance are the most important criteria, not gender or the colour of their skin. What is truly remarkable is that, despite compelling evidence that links the promotion of equal opportunities with organizational performance and profitability, there are new cases almost every month of women employees suing organizations for discrimination and sexual harassment in the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia. So if the rational economic logic for promoting workplace diversity is quite overwhelming, an important question arises. Why do women still encounter discrimination at work? There can be only two reasons: either there are prejudicial beliefs and attitudes in organizations that prevent women from achieving parity with men, and impede the creation of truly inclusive workplaces, or women do not have the same motivation, intelligence, ambition or ability to compete on an equal footing with men, and no amount of equal opportunity legislation or affirmative action by organizations will ever change this.

These two contentions will be addressed in the following sections.

Gender stereotypes

Duties of the wife. A wife should respect her husband because he is the head of the family. She must obey him. A wife must shun idleness. She should not sit down and watch television while her husband is working. She must take care of the children and the household, of which she is the queen. She should be economical in her personal expenses, avoiding vanity, extravagance and an inordinate desire to outshine her friends and neighbours.

(From the introduction to The Book of Common Prayer, 1964)

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Women under 30, in industrialized countries, would find the world of a typical stay-at-home housewife of the 1950s and 1960s to be very alien and, in most cases, one that they would consider to be unacceptable. However, many of the attitudes that dictated that men were the primary breadwinners and women were responsible for looking after the domestic unit and the children are still prevalent. On one level the ‘natural’ differences between men and women have been the source of an enormous amount of humour and jokes, most of which cannot be repeated in a respectable publication like this one. But, for illustrative purposes, here are a few less controversial ones:

Q. ‘What do men and beer bottles have in common?’

A. ‘They’re both empty from the neck upwards.’

Q. ‘How thick is the glass ceiling?’

A. ‘That depends on the density of the men.’

Q. ‘What is Mother-in-Law an anagram of?’2

Q. ‘Why do women live longer than men?’

A. ‘Because they’re not married to women.’

A journalist had written a story on traditional gender roles in Kuwait several years before the first Gulf War. She had noticed that the women customarily walked about five metres behind their husbands. When the journalist asked about this she was told, ‘Men are our masters and the heads of the household. It is our duty to walk behind them.’ She returned to Kuwait a few months after the end of the war and noticed that the men now walked about ten metres behind their wives. She approached one woman for an explanation. ‘This is marvellous,’ she exclaimed. ‘What has enabled women here to achieve this reversal of roles?’ The Kuwaiti woman immediately replied, ‘Land mines.’

These are not the funniest jokes but, on a cultural level, do highlight something we are going to look at in some depth: gender stereotypes. The best exemplar of these is probably the ‘Male and Female Brain’ cartoon that did the rounds on the Internet in the mid-1990s (Figure 6.1). With this cartoon fresh in your mind, please complete selfdevelopment Exercise 6.1.

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 237

The Male Brain								Crotch scanning
					Ball			area
						Dangerous			Toilet
					sports				aiming cell
						pursuits
										Domestic
			SEX		SEX		Ability to			skills
							drive manual
							transmission
										TV and
Listening
particle										remote
										control
										addiction
	Attention									centre
	span		‘Avoid			Lame
Figure	6.1 Male and female brains

	personal
		excuses	Ironing
	questions at
		gland
	all costs’
	area

Note: the ‘Listening to children cry in the middle of the night’ gland is not shown owing to its small and underdeveloped nature. Best viewed under a microscope.

The Female Brain

Indecision nucleus

Telephone

Shoe/handbag skills Chocolate coordination

centre

Need for Jealousy commitment

hemisphere

Listening

Shopping

Sense of		Sex (see note)
direction
neuron

Note: Note how closely connected the small sex cell is to the listening gland.

Exercise 6.1

Gender opinions

This exercise consists of a series of statements about women and men. Indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each one, where 5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3 = neutral, 2 = disagree, 1 = strongly disagree. Write the appropriate number next to each statement.

Please avoid ‘politically correct’ answers. For each statement, please record the score that seems most appropriate to you.

238 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE
Section I Women and work
1	Women don’t need to work outside the home, because there are plenty of
	challenges for women in child-rearing and running a home	________
2	All forms of feminism are damaging to the interests of women	________
3	Women do not have the same entrepreneurial instincts as men	________
4	Working women shouldn’t take time off work because of family responsibilities	________
5	If children are to develop normally, they need their mothers to stay at home
	while they are growing up	________

6Women are just too emotional to succeed in high-level positions in organizations ________

7On average, women managers and professionals earn the same as men doing

	similar work in equivalent positions	________
8	Hiring single women graduates into management trainee positions represents a
	poor investment for an organization because they’ll probably leave to have
	children after a few years	________
9	Women are not rational and decisive enough for the top leadership positions in
	organizations	________
10	The notion that women still suffer sexual harassment at work is a myth	________
Section II Men and work
1	In general, men are justified in resenting working for a female boss	________
2	It’s embarrassing to see a man in a job that is traditionally occupied by a woman,
	such as a secretary or nurse	________
3	It is embarrassing when men start talking about their emotions and personal
	feelings	________
4	The most important goal in a man’s life should be his career	________
5	In a dual-career couple, the man’s career should always come first	________
6	‘Straight’ men have every right to resent working with gays and lesbians	________
7	Men do not have as much right to paternity leave as women do to maternity
	leave	________
8	The main reason why there are so many more men than women in leadership
	positions is that they are, by nature, better suited to these roles	________

	THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS	239
9	Men will always be more successful than women, because in the final analysis
	they are, by nature, more rational and less emotional	________
10	Feminism is a threat to the interests of men

Please add up your total score for Section I ______ + Section II ______ = ______

Interpreting your score

High scores (over 40) represent more traditional or conservative views about the intrinsic natures of men and women and their roles in society and the workplace. A mid-ranging score (26–40) would be associated with more modern views about the nature of men and women. A score of 25 or less is associated with progressive views about the intrinsic natures of men and women, and their roles in society and the workplace.

For now, I’d like you to forget about the results of this questionnaire. Please put these to one side and move straight on to the next self-devel- opment exercise.

Exercise 6.2

Leading on from Exercise 6.1, please describe what you think the main characteristics of men and women are. I’ve suggested the first two, but these can be anything that you believe describe the basic characteristics of men and women.

Men: ‘aggressive’,

Women: ‘cooperative’,

A man with traditional views about the nature of women might have written down things like intuitive, caring, submissive, irrational, emotional, cooperative and supporter or follower. He might have also written down things like logical, strategic, competitive, rational, exploitative, leader and decision-maker, to describe men. He might also have written down some of the things that were contained in the ‘Two-Brains’ cartoon, or may have come up with completely different responses. Again, at this stage, it doesn’t matter what your responses were. However, I’d like us to focus for a while on some of the consequences of ‘traditional’ views about women. If this is considered logically, there is only one possible outcome of these stereotypes: the creation of a mind-set that results in organizations