Women in a women's world...

An interesting lunch discussion led us to the topic "women in a women's world". What differs from a leadership point of view between a men's and a women's dominated world?

Girls are taught (still!) that the group is the base of every thing and that decision should be done in group, no "real" leader is necessary, better have a consensus and everyone agreeing rather than fighting for the best place in the group.
Boys on the other side get this competitive approach, like "nice to play the game, better to win it" (if I may simplify it this way).

The discussion today started from discussion about own children and their education and lead to our own experience in different environments. My lady friend recall working in a hospital in a team exclusively made of women (except for a male substitute who was the little pet of the department). Women there were quite bitter and let their bitterness go to others through negative and impulsive actions and reactions, not leading really to improvement in either the social atmosphere nor the efficiency of the department. The long story made short made us thought about another experience in a male dominated world as the IT industry. Men have been there to set the rules from the beginning and keep this historical advantage to themselves when promotion are coming, sponsoring their male favorite rather than a female outsider.

Wait a minute here! This sounds SO CLICHÉ! Well, according to my little researches for my MBA dissertation, this is still the case and even though there ARE female going through this glass ceiling or through the net towards top management, it is still few of them and lots still are left on the sticky floor.

Males support each other on their way up. Females don't... Where did it stop working???? Madeline Albright said rightly "There's a special place in Hell for women not helping each other". Well, is this place so nice and attractive, that women still keep doing this to themselves and to each other?

A recent article published in a Swedish newspaper mentioned that more young women chose the IT studies recently (actually, not that much more, but a little bit better!). A reason? Well Sweden is clearly lacking of IT-experts. Not that we don't have any, but that we have too few. Why not starting to wonder if women are not the half part missing (Yes you read right!).

So time to wake up and not only read the fabulous stories of IT-ladies who have succeeded. BE ONE OF THEM! IN ANY INDUSTRY! Show to the world that women are to be part of the industry as they are part of the society! Mentalities have to be fought to get a clear understanding of what has to be changed. Some IT-companies go to the opposite, getting only ladies recruited lately to get a better balance between gender. Well, I may be unfair here, but isn't it discriminating the opposite sex?

Back to women in women's world. What a challenge!
... to be continued

Why female leadership?

Why not?!!! This was a quite interesting question I got during an interview today. Why did I chose the topic I chose for my MBA dissertation "Female leadership and and the Glass ceiling effect: An investigation into career opportunities for women within the IT industry in Sweden".

Well, what appear obvious for me might not be the same for others. So my answer was (and still is) as follow: I have been seeing and experiencing a transparent wall or ceiling, stopping women to access upper echelon in companies (not only in the IT but more notable in male-dominated industry like... IT or Construction). So the logic as well as the curiosity lead my choice. A little push came as well from a lecturer during my Business leadership course of my MBA which was so inspiring (a women) and the discussions she lead or support or completed during this 6-weeks journey were extremely intense and inspiring (already said that!), which has definitely played a great role in my topic choice.

Female leadership comes regularly back on newspaper front-page as soon as a woman is nominated at a CEO or other executive level (note as well that it is OFTEN when the company is in difficulties that the leading group/BoD decide to promote a woman for the role supreme!). So the interest is there already. Moreover being ambitious and aiming for the higher level in the leading roles of companies, i have always been interested in questioning why so few women at top-position. Well the past has put men in decisions-seats and they still have problem to leave them for the other gender.

My conclusions (briefly here) were that mentalities are difficult to change and even in Sweden promoting so much the equality of opportunities between genders it is noteworthy the difficulties women have to get to operative top-management positions (you may find them in education, HR, PR, but still (too) few in CEO and other operating roles having greater decision power on the hiring of future leaders (which may more logically be at the image of already in place leaders, i.e. men...).
I will publish more information from my investigation when I receive the conclusion from the Board of examiner concerning my dissertation (two days left!).

When it comes to women and home... and career (?)

Now I am facing a quite interesting situation. From working full-time as consultant for the past ten years I am now full-time searching for my next move and challenge, enjoying (sometimes) the nice sunshine we have had for the past two weeks in Sweden (well, not enough actually!).
This morning I left my children at their respective pre-school and school. I receive a question/invitation for accompanying me second son's class to an outing next week. This is really nice indeed and I really enjoy it. What surprise me is that no one asked my boyfriend yesterday when he picked up the kids.

Is that understood already that mums ought to make it through their career (i.e. being successful) AND fixing all the other "all-around" activities related to the WHOLE family? Do not misunderstand me! I really do appreciate the offer and will probably answer yes to it (well, I am having a breakfast-seminar from 7:30am-9:00am and need to run back to the school but still enjoyable!). Now I am left for the next 48 hours with three children, one appointment at the surgery specialist for the eye for my second son, one swimming lesson for the older one, one meeting with teacher and a lunch-meeting tomorrow at the same time as I have a conference-sessions to attend during the day and the running-number of my boyfriend to pick up the same day...

How many hands and brains and legs does a mum have? More than any other "normal" person? Well obviously yes. Have to keep track on every family member agenda (and is really well reminded in case she forget something!), prepare and arrange for the children activities (as this has to be often done few months in advance to even think about having a place!), same for adults activities (which might be more spontaneous but still)...

So my thoughts are quite simple: is there any plan to make it easier for a woman to get her life's journey more enjoyable? I do enjoy having all those tasks. However when I feel like "No, not today", well other are still expecting me to behave as usual... Tricky thing isn't it?

Will be attending a breakfast "seminar" next week discussing on culture and health... interesting topic indeed, let's see what's going out of it!

Ladies event in Stockholm...

I was attending yesterday an interesting event organized by IBM Sweden in Stockholm (no free ad here!) directed to primarily women (but not only). The main participant to the conference was one woman who participated in the YCC-project for Volvo. Never heard about YCC? Well, google it and you'll see! (Note that YCC stands for "Your Concept Car"). This project is based on a simple thesis:"If you meet women's expectations, you will surpass men's"... Quite catchy isn't it? : ) A group of women only was working on this concept car which was presented in 2004 to the world.

I will not re-trace nor discuss the story here (Volvo got enough publications and still does!). This is interesting in the sense that female are taking increasing share of car-customers and therefore their needs, requirements and expectations should be listened too in order to get increased satisfied customers (isn't it the basic of all businesses?). Here Volvo took a risk but still provided the opportunity to show the world that bearing this risk would potentially generate revenue (direct or indirect), which it did. The project was a success and was mentioned (and still is) as a first of its kind.

My thoughts here are : What does it take for companies to recognize the role of women in the consumption world? What does it take to get top management to provide fundings for such projects.? Because here the ideas came from women and were driven by women (the PR-part as well!!!), but look at the results!

Women are often trusted at top-managerial positions when companies are already in the risk zone and that "one more or less" (i.e. female at upper-echelon are still seen as risk-taken strategy... no comment! At least for now ; ) will not make such a difference. Well, when women show that they did actually a better job than expected save the company aso, they are not often given nice roses and compliments on the hard job they made. Rather asking them how they will continue to maintain this competitive edge they reached or else...

Now we get to the unfairness of the business world! Yes it exists : ) In Sweden only few women are representing companies at CEO levels, not much more than in France, UK or the State. Why?!!! Have we not learn from the past? Kotter writes so well on the lessons of change that the past should be a reference but not a determining choice for the future strategy. Could he be showing the leading role that female could be taking in such change? Forgetting half of the working population might have worked when men were the one deciding on the consumption of the family. With more and more women working and getting their own income to spend, their role has been increasing on the market place... but still they are ignored when succession arrive for top-echelon (or as mentioned earlier recalled when danger and risk are in-stake already!).

Back to this ladies event. This was incredibly inspiring to hear this lady speaking about this project and the impact it had on the world (Japp! The world!). So keep on working hard, ladies! So days those men-in-black-suits might realize their destiny is in other one's hands and remember the second forgotten half of their workforce (i.e. women!).

In the meanwhile, get active participation as much as possible in boards or in managerial position. Easier said than done? Well, yes. But still, the more females represented at upper echelon, the more the decision-making processes will include them and especially in the succession of themselves or other executives... Sounds like futurist or?

Quick note...

New favicon on the top of this website... Don't you enjoy where you're having fun? : )

La barbe...

or the Beard... this is the name of a "feminist" (?) group in France which is disturbing boards of directors with their action pro-female. They wear a beard in order to show that if this is what it takes for being part of a BoD, it is quite ridiculous and pre-historical!!!
I am not really found of this kind of action (even though I am French!) as I see it as disturbing more than really acting on finding a solution to the issue (i.e. lack of women at top levels in companies both public and private sector!)

Norway has been implementing a quota of 40% of female members for A-listed companies, and if not followed fines and more will be the results. Well, even though it has shown a net increase in the participation of females in BoD, there are still efforts to make: some companies chose to stop being A-listed in order to skip this regulation and others chose voluntarily to pay the dissuasive fine rather than getting women at those top level positions. So not understandable! Companies are ready to continue ignoring 50% of their population!

Back to "La Barbe", which expressed their will to have all women going actively on July 14 (national day in France) and put a beard on all statues representing the republic aso... Well in my view this is going a bit too far and not really showing maturity in their choice of actions. How can those narrow-minded costume-dressed men even re-think their position about women at upper echelons, when some are showing so childish actions! Not really in favour of women in my view...

So my conclusion on this topic would be that re-thinking a strategy seems necessary for this kind of action group. Follow the quite logical steps from Kotter: Create a sense of urgency, get top-managerial and people with influence involved in the project, determine a vision... Well show that it is well-thought and not only to get parity at top-level hierarchy to getting parity, but to show that companies have been missing lots of ideas, participation, commitment... by stopping women from getting access to those positions...

[to be continued...]