Do You Have a Promotion or a Prevention Orientation?

Last year, I read some fascinating research about women entrepreneurs in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) conducted by researchers Dana Kanze, Mark Conley and E. Tory Higgins from Columbia and Laura Huang of Harvard. Together they discovered that women business owners are frequently subjected to far different scrutiny than their male counterparts. 

For example, while a man might be asked questions with a promotion orientation – questions focused on hopes, achievements, advancement, and ideals, women are instead asked questions with a prevention orientation - those concerned with safety, responsibility, security, and vigilance. This forces women to constantly defend their ideas and their capabilities and feel like they never measure up to other's expectations.

This research rang true to me so I started teaching the concepts in my workshops and making sure my clients were prepared for how they might overcome this obvious bias by always answering prevention-oriented questions with promotion-oriented answers. I also counseled those conducting job interviews to be conscious of how they might be unconsciously framing their questions following this same pattern.

Interestingly, I have now begun to notice this same phenomenon appearing outside of the funding and job interview process. In the last week I noticed two unexpected instances that made it clear that this limiting orientation about women is actually all around us – and that women and men are susceptible to its limited thinking.

Are You Trying to “Fix” Women?

First, I was on the phone with a speaker who is presenting a workshop in the fall as part of a women’s leadership program where I also speak annually. He is new to the community and was seeking my advice on how to prepare his talk. I asked him to give me a top line overview of his content and while he is a definite expert in his topic area of Emotional Intelligence or EQ, it was obvious that he had not thought through how to present his material to women leaders. 

While he was fortunately avoiding the common pitfall of mansplaining, he was gearing his program to women as if they were the problem in every setting. There were many instances in his language and his examples in which he seemed intent of “fixing” the women so they could overcome likely pitfalls versus celebrating what they were doing well and identifying ways they could advance their success. 

Instead, Focus on What’s Working

I see this same phenomenon in other places – in presentations at women’s conferences, in content in women’s training programs and in women’s leadership books – those written by  both men and women. Yes, the dominant culture in most industries (tech, finance, etc.) is male, but that doesn’t mean that when things don’t go well that women need to change. In fact, I might (naively, perhaps) argue that we might learn a lot from watching what women naturally do and encouraging more of that. They are often working very hard to thrive in a culture that doesn’t welcome them and we could learn from their strategies and even identify things that we could fix so they don’t have to work so hard.

Don’t fix the women, fix the culture.

Fortunately, the speaker was really open to suggestions and was happy to read the research and rethink and reframe his presentation accordingly. He had not been aware – as most of us are not – in how his thinking might be shaped by assumptions about women as less than. Women are not less capable, less ready, less likely to succeed. But when they are assumed to be, that puts them on the back foot and often assures that they will be forced to defend themselves and their ideas and actions. Think about how insidious and undermining that approach can be.

The Questions You Ask Matter

Later in the week, I was invited to participate in a global project led by Karen Brown, the former global head of diversity and inclusion at Baker McKenzie, the 2nd largest law firm in the world. Karen is traveling around the world interviewing women in the VC/Start-up/Tech ecosystem to create "Proof Positive" profiles that might inspire more young women to enter these professions and more men to support their efforts. The hope is that these profiles will become a book, website, maybe even a video series, so I was honored to be included.

Yet, when Karen sent me a detailed set of questions before our interview I was dismayed to find that almost every one of them was a prevention question. I was getting depressed just prepping for the interview! Here are just a sample:

• As you rose through your career, were there times when you were discouraged?
• What was the hardest criticism/feedback you received? How did you take that and turn it into something useful? What was the outcome?
• Name one of your greatest challenges or worst mistakes made, how you overcame it and the lesson learned.
• Name an insecurity and how you've gotten past it or name a career challenge you are wrestling with today and your strategy for coping.

None of these were how I saw myself or my career nor how I wanted to present my past experiences to others. I sent Karen the HBS article and asked her if we might reframe the questions and fortunately she was game. Here’s what she came back with:

• What was one of the biggest opportunities you were provided?
• Who were the leaders who had the most impact on you?
• What differentiates the people who helped you?
• What do you find most rewarding about running your own business?

With these sorts of questions, I was actually looking forward to our 90 minute interview (which went great!). It wasn’t that we didn't talk about the obstacles, but as I suggested to Karen, if we want to encourage young women to think they can succeed, it doesn’t help for them to think everything is going to be hard and they are going to make a lot of mistakes. 

If we want to encourage young women to think they can succeed, it doesn’t help for them to think everything is going to be hard and they are going to make a lot of mistakes.

I welcome you to share any experiences you’ve had in your company or career where you’ve overcome this phenomenon and any recommendations you have for others to do the same. In the meantime, ask yourself:

• How might you reframe the work you are doing to assure you are equally likely to ask promotion questions to any candidate in a job or media interview? 
• How might you rethink your leadership programs and presentations to assure you are looking at the strengths and preparing for the opportunities ahead for both men and women? 
• How might you reframe your language and your culture so that everyone feels welcome?

Even simple behavior changes can ensure that we are each doing our part to modify the culture in a way that enables everyone to succeed. And staying alert for promotion versus prevention questions can also help each of us recognize when our own self interests are at stake.

Denise Brosseau is CEO of Thought Leadership Lab, the author of Ready to Be a Thought Leader? (Wiley/Jossey-Bass) and a lecturer at Stanford Business School. She works with executives, entrepreneurs and their teams on how to position themselves and their organizations as thought leaders. Her new LinkedIn Learning online class on thought leadership just launched on May 8.