Allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Harvey Weinstein — quietly discussed for years and finally made public by a group of courageous women — have broken open a critical conversation about gender inequity. We know this problem isn’t confined to Hollywood. We’ve seen headlines in tech and media. More widely, we may have the unsettling sense that unequal treatment is pervasive in our own companies and boardrooms.
For male CEOs and managers, it isn’t sufficient to point to formal diversity programs and say that you’ve done enough. Your talented female employees certainly don’t think so. A recent survey conducted by McKinsey and Sheryl Sandberg’s organization Lean In reports that 63% of men said their companies are taking adequate steps to improve gender diversity. Only 49% of women agreed. “It’s a pure blind spot,” Lareina Yee, a senior partner at McKinsey, told the Washington Post.
Fortunately, business leaders and researchers can point the way toward making companies more inclusive. Key idea: It starts with encouraging people to think of themselves as allies. Whether the issue is sexual orientation or race or gender, one of the big, important trends of the last 10 years is nongroup members making a commitment to advancing others.
Find The Best Stories
How you talk about success in your company can influence how both men and women think about women’s potential for achievement. Laura Kray and Laura Howland of Berkeley, with Alexandra Russell and Lauren Jackman of Stanford, have studied how men and women think about gender roles as fixed versus malleable, and how those beliefs affect their defense of the status quo.
For example, they asked study participants to read either an article providing evidence that differences in gender roles remain stable over time or an article summarizing evidence that gender roles change. They found that when men read the first article, motivating them to consider a traditional masculine identity to be fixed, they were more likely to justify gender inequality in subsequent responses.
Business leaders can change the script by demonstrating that people of all kinds are not confined to rigid roles. Kray suggests finding stories within your company that recognize individuals who have advanced in the organization. “That might be highlighting and celebrating people who worked their way up in an organization — maybe someone who started as a secretary,” she says. “It used to be the case that we thought of the top jobs as belonging to someone with a certain profile, but you can show that it really comes down to passion, drive and hard work.”
The stories you share with one another can even be brief moments of enlightenment. One of the most compelling stories I have heard was when a male colleague went to a Sheryl Sandberg event where he was one of about six men in a sea of 200 women. When Sheryl asked a question of the group, he raised his hand — then immediately the thought shot through his mind: Am I answering for myself or for the men in the room? He realized this was the first time he’d ever asked himself this question. Yet many women in work environments ask the parallel question of themselves often. Hearing this anecdote was an “aha” moment for me as a man. These are the kinds of stories that warrant being told and retold in our organizations at all-hands meetings.
Be A Sponsor, Not Just A Mentor
The concept of sponsorship rather than mentorship is a powerful yet relatively recent notion. Most people are willing to mentor — to provide advice and share their own experiences. Fewer are willing to sponsor — to actively serve as an advocate who will make opportunities for others.
The distinction was brought home to me by Jo Mackness, who was our chief strategy and operating officer at the business school. She was participating in a leadership acceleration program and told me that one of her assignments was to develop a list of mentors in her career and also identify several sponsors. She helped me see the difference clearly and asked if I was comfortable serving as one of her sponsors. That was a supervaluable conversation for both of us. She was recently promoted to the interim head for staff human resources for the entire University of California, Berkeley, and I was thrilled to support her.
Adopt Better Practices
Kellie McElhaney, an adjunct professor at Berkeley, has incorporated the students’ ideas into her corporate consulting work. “We need men as allies, and we need women to support other women,” she says.
McElhaney serves as the founding director for the Haas Center for Gender, Equity & Leadership, which formally launched Nov. 6. Among her recommendations is for companies to gather data about men’s and women’s retention and pay rates. “If it doesn’t start with pay,” she says, “the rest doesn’t matter.”
Industry leaders can show the way. In 2014, Gap Inc. gathered comprehensive data on pay rates and shared it with an outside analytics firm, which confirmed that the retailer, on average, pays men and women equally for equal work. Its commitment to equity helps Gap retain its most capable employees.
Another promising effort is the NEW Future Fund, co-chaired by Target CEO Brian Cornell and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. They aim to raise $5 million for the Network of Executive Women, a leadership organization working to achieve gender parity at all seniority levels in the retail and consumer-goods industries.
Remember, this isn’t a women’s issue: Encourage the men at your company to become active “manbassadors” — we are doing the same among our faculty at Berkeley. Pay attention to whether men are speaking more often than women in meetings. Be conscious about comments about people’s appearances — this rarely happens in an unbiased way. Make sure your team is conscious of “mansplaining” — explaining things to women that they already know, sometimes better than the man who’s talking.
Creating an inclusive company is everyone’s job, and business leaders have a special obligation to develop a culture of allyship. Managers can build structures, share stories and implement practices that give men and women equal opportunity to succeed.
