How Inclusive Are We Really? A Workshop about Leveraging Women Leadership and Diversity

?By Jennifer Campbell

A little over a week ago, I traveled to the south of my home country, the Netherlands, to facilitate a workshop called "How Inclusive Are We Really? Leveraging Women Leadership and Diversity." The workshop was part of the wonderfully organized Leadership Forum Maastricht at the Bonnefanten museum in Maastricht city, and it was held on Friday, November 30, 2018. The two organizations that prepared and organized this conference were Medtronic and Maastricht University. 

My workshop was after a panel discussion with the leaders of the top three organizations in Maastricht, who happened to all be women. In this article, I'd like to share an overview of the introduction, discussion, and exploration that took place during my workshop, as well as some additional information about diversity and inclusivity.

PART 1: INTRODUCTION & DISCUSSION

Do We Discuss This at Our Coffee Machines?

In many organizations, the coffee machine is the typical place for people, whether in leadership roles or other positions, to talk about what's really on their minds. As an experiment, I asked my audience whether they ever discussed any of the following questions and topics while taking a break and getting a cup of coffee. But, before I tell you what they answered, let me ask you—yes, you. Did you, at any point, say, in the last five years in your role, discuss any of the following at the coffee machine of your organization (I'd love to hear in the comments!):

• What is women leadership and diversity all about?
• What is gender diversity and why is it important to discuss?
• Why is gender diversity an issue in general and specifically in our organization?
• What are our numbers? What is the gender parity in our organization and teams?
• What is the impact of gender equality on our workforce in general and specifically in leadership roles?
• Why should this issue be solved, and who should solve it?

In my group of workshop participants, about 20% of hands went up. We noticed that only women raised their hands. The other women and all the men in the room had never discussed this at the coffee machine in their organizations. When looking at diversity issues, usually for the dominant majority and, sometimes, even for the group that holds the minority voice or position, diversity isn't often discussed. People often don’t openly talk about diversity issues.

Gender Diversity and Gender Parity: Definitions and Numbers

Gender diversity is equitable or fair representation between genders. It commonly refers to an equal ratio of men to women, but it may also include non-binary gender categories. Gender diversity on corporate boards is widely discussed, and many ongoing initiatives study and promote gender diversity in fields that are traditionally dominated by men, including computing, engineering, medicine, and science. We explored gender diversity at different levels: the global level, the organizational/departmental level, and the individual level.

Global

We started by looking at eight facts about gender parity at a global level and their impact:

"Why those same old financial arguments for gender equality?" one of the male participants said. "I think having a good gender equality should be a natural thing." A discussion followed; even though, on an intellectual level, we can say that women should have equal opportunities as men, in reality, they do not.

Even though we have come a long way in the past few decades, the differences are still large and apparent. It can be painful or difficult to understand why diversity issues still exist when the reasons for them don't make any sense. That's why diversity, or the dominance of one group compared to others, isn't necessarily a logical or rational phenomenon.

Country ranking

Gender diversity, or lack thereof, and its impact on our society is measured by the World Economic Forum. Every year, the WEF publishes the Gender Gap Report and compares gender parity in 144 counties. Gender parity is assigned a number that corresponds to the relative equality or equal representation of women and men in a given area: for example, gender parity in organizational leadership or higher education. The gender parity that the WEF uses weighs many factors, which are categorized in four main elements: economic participation and opportunity, education, health, and political empowerment.

We looked at and discussed a few countries, mainly based on the cultures present in the room, and the country that ranked first:

• Iceland, #1, made unequal pay, that is paying men more than women, illegal as of 1/1/2018.
• The Netherlands, #32,  many women still work part-time.
• United States, #49, women have low political empowerment.

Organizational level - The Glass Ceiling

We then looked at the numbers in the organizations represented in the conference and saw that every organization has other difficulties with getting their parity right. Most organizations didn't have high parity on their boards. One organization in the healthcare industry has far more women in the entire organization, but only a few women hold roles as department heads.

In the workshop, we didn't extensively discuss the glass ceiling because the real experience of the three women leaders in the panel discussion preceding my workshop were an answer to this in terms of examples; being in a leader role as a woman is alright, and they these women leaders in Maastricht, the Netherlands feel fairly accepted, but actually making a career step or getting a promotion is where it gets difficult. All of the sudden, women need to meet more criteria and jump more hoops to have the same chance of being promoted as their male peers. 

So, let me briefly discuss this phenomenon here.

Generally, when we use the phrase 'glass ceiling,' we refer to an invisible barrier that prevents someone from achieving further success. It is most often used in the context of someone's age, gender, or ethnicity that keeps them from advancing to a certain point in their career, in a business, or when he or she cannot or will not be promoted to a higher level of position or power. We most often observe glass ceilings in the workplace, and they are usually a barrier to achieving power and success equal to that of a more dominant population. An example is a woman who has more skills, talent, and education than her male peers but is passed over for promotions.

The glass ceiling metaphor refers to an employee's rise in the ranks of an organization. In theory, nothing prevents a woman from being promoted, but women can see that the higher they are in the company, the more promotions, pay raises, and opportunities they should have. Instead of being able to achieve the same success as peers, those who encounter glass ceilings are stopped by invisible obstacles that prevent them from rising further.

The frustrating thing about this kind of oppression is that it is covert and cannot be seen. Instead of being a tangible barrier that we can easily identify, a glass ceiling in the workplace persists in very subtle ways.

Back to my audience: "So, what I'm now noticing is that we rolled out programs to tick boxes and reach quotas, but, as I hear you say, it's not about the numbers. I'm realizing it really isn't...!" Something important clicked for this woman in the audience; we think that getting diversity right is by making sure the numbers are right in terms of representation, but that doesn't take away the subtle dynamics of the glass ceiling.

Individual

"Why is it so hard to speak up?" A woman in the audience shares a situation in the workplace in which a man calls her miss or missy (translated from the Dutch 'Mejuffrouw') during an important meeting in which she was holding not "just any role, but a very experienced one indeed." She mentions how she didn't say anything: not in the meeting and not in hindsight. Obviously, she still felt offended by this incident. "Well, you are speaking about it now in a big group, what is the difference?" I ask. "We are talking about it now, it is part of today’s topic. That was a different setting." 

Some other women in the audience give suggestions, thoughts and advice, such as "I would see whether it is meant to put you down, or if it is just something they are unaware of in terms of impact." and, "If it is the latter, I give it back by making a joke out of it." 

After a period of silence, another female participant says, "It is difficult to see whether it is a diversity issue or not, because I wouldn't feel offended by this situation." "Well isn't that the whole point?" asks a man. "It is all very subtle; if it wasn't we would be able to solve this fairly quickly. But everyone experiences things differently, and we don't look at what is actually happening."

Systemic Problem or Systemic Opportunity?

Unequal opportunity or low parity doesn't change overnight. It is a systemic problem: a problem with many interrelated aspects, making it complex and not a project that can be solved in a linear, A to B manner. Systemic problems require a whole system or context to change. Everything and everyone in a system, like an organization or team, is affected by the problem and, once solved, also by the solution. When looking at gender parity, there are, at least, the aspects in the chart that are strongly related.

"Isn't it an opportunity?" a woman in the audience asks. I encourage her to say more. "Well, it is now posited as an issue, a problem. I would like to see it as an opportunity for women to work towards." 

"So, if you look at it as an opportunity for individuals, how big of a chance do you think they will have, individually, when their environment is not open to including women?" I asked.

She went into deep thought after my remark. When a problem is systemic, chances for individuals to affect change are much smaller than when their environment is open to their ideas. It doesn't mean that change can't happen; it just means that it is much harder to move an entire system by oneself.

Dealing with Diversity: When Is It Enough?

"So, when is it enough?" asks another woman in the room. 

"When is what enough?" I ask in return. 

"I mean, when do we say, okay, we've tackled female diversity enough and now we should move to the other types of diversity like cultural background." 

"That's an interesting question,", I said. "This brings us back to why we would focus on harnessing the benefits of diversity in the first place: it depends on the goal and purpose of your context or, in this case, our organization".

Leveraging female leadership diversity, or any type of diversity for that matter, in an organizational context, is about the fact that heterogeneous teams outperform homogeneous teams (Distefano & Maznevski, 2000). This is true in any living system: the more diversity a group, an organism, or an eco-system can hold, the more versatile and agile it is in responding to demands from and changes in its environment. In the case a team, a prerequisite for this is that it is managed and led well. This means that, if organizations are able to be inclusive and allow for diversity within their teams, then their teams will better perform than if their departments and teams are more homogenous. 

Actually, the question about “when is it enough” is preceded by a number of different questions, including: what is our current level of diversity, does it represent our purpose and who we serve, and if so, are we able to perform better? Enough is not determined by the numbers; enough is determined by the goal and context. In that sense, it is the same as any other type of diversity. It's just that, generally, in many contexts, gender diversity is considered to be a focus compared to other types of diversity that have lower parities. That doesn't make it less important, though, because we are still not there yet.

So, when we look at the impact of diversity on performance, we see the impact on organizational health in different areas:

• Solutions, innovation, and renewal
• Overall performance
• Turnover and quality of workforce
• Serving customers
• Financial, including revenues and profits
• Corporate governance

The Wrong People in the Room

We came to a point in our discussion in which we shared a sense of the value and importance of diversity. When touching upon the importance of leadership in leveraging diversity, I asked "How many of you hold leadership roles?" About two thirds of the people in the room raised their hands.

"I wish some colleagues and leaders in our organization who are not here would actually be here to hear this," someone commented. 

"We have the wrong people in the room!" someone else said. I saw many people agreed by nodding their heads or uttering confirmations to this. 

"So now there are the wrong and the right people, the people who know about the importance of women diversity, or any other kind, and the people who do not— well, at least not in the context of today's workshop...?". I asked. 

The volume of voices dropped. It was time to talk about and work with inclusivity.

PART 2: EXPLORATION AND ACTION

Inclusivity

Somehow, the slide titled "the importance of becoming an inclusive organization" was duplicated in the slide deck. Apparently, it was important for all of us to look at it twice. I then shared the overview below, explaining the benefits for organizations that are more inclusive, which is slightly broader than the benefits of allowing diversity alone. The content pretty much speaks for itself:

• More agility and ability to deal with differences, complexity, and change
• A whole system approach to a whole system problem => solving OUR problem
• More optimal tapping  of knowledge and resources, thusmitigating the risk of negative impacts or of non-optimal use of what's available but not utilized
• Reaping the benefits for solutions, performance, and organizational health
• Leveraging diversity brought by everyone, including women and other non-dominant groups
• Better workplace
• Increased longevity for the organization

It's About Us

I invited my audience to explore: "Now the question is: how do we become more inclusive organizations?" After all that discussion and deep reflection, a silence followed when I asked this question. "I get it; it is a Friday afternoon. We can sit here and wait until it's over, have a drink and a snack at the networking event, and then go home. But how will you return to the job on Monday? Will you think 'what was it again that I'd like to try and discuss with my colleague at the coffee machine?'" 

I looked around the room, people stared back at me, and then someone asked, "It actually is about us in the room, isn't it?"

Exploring Inclusivity Creates Awareness and Input for Action

And so the group decided and moved. I encouraged them to create small, diverse groups, diverse in any way that they wanted to define it at that moment. There was diversity in terms of gender, cultural background, organization, role (leadership or not), age, and more. Each group discussed a different aspect of what an inclusive organization does, based on a list of ten characteristics of an inclusive organization. 

I shared a position related to gender diversity as well as other diversities (see article image). I told them that it was "A" list and not "THE" list, and that it was meant to facilitate the discussion about how to become a more inclusive organization.

What followed was a lively discussion in the small groups. I walked around the room and witnessed different exchanges taking place at that moment. It was great to see how eye and ears were open, how curiosity everyone was in all their interactions, and how surprises and learning was flooding the room. How much energy is released once people simply open up to each other and themselves always fascinates me.

Even though I can't share any individual or content-related discoveries and actions, these are some of my audience’s findings:

• "We discovered how different our departments actually are; we work for the same organization, but it was like talking to different organizations altogether.""
• "I learned how complex gender diversity, or any diversity, actually is, and it is not about ticking boxes or a single solution."
• "We have cultural differences in our group and, by discussing from our different frames of reference, we come up with new ideas on how to deal with diversity."
• "We rediscovered that gender equality is more about representation than about having an equal number of men and women. Different organizations require a different representation. There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to equality. It makes no sense to have an all-men board in an all-women organization, or to have senior leadership with only women in a male dominated company."
• "I learned that we based our diversity programs on getting the gender parity right, but we can actually make more progress by focusing on inclusivity than on diversity. Inclusivity emphasizes more of what is right and what's possible for the organization."

Including What or Who is Dominant when You See/are the Excluded One

Inclusivity is also about including the dominant majority: those who we feel should actually hear about diversity and inclusivity, those who we try to convince by using arguments about the impact of diverse teams on organizational performance (arguments we don't want or like to use any longer, because diversity 'should be a natural thing'), those who we feel should be in the room with us. But it’s also about including yourself.

After reading all this, ask yourself: how inclusive am I, really? As a team, organization, or as a leader or an employee at work—how inclusive am I?

=================================================================IIf you enjoyed this article, please comment below! Plus, if you ever have any questions about systemic leadership, if you want some help in implementing changes in your organization (including, becoming a more inclusive one), if you want to know more about the annual Systemic Leadership Summit, or even if you just want to discuss ideas in this article, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at https://www.jennifercampbell.com. 

References

• The Global Gender Gap Report 2017, World Economic Forum.
• Women matter: Ten years of insights on gender diversity, MckKinsey.com
• Glass Ceiling Theory in Sociology: Definition & Barriers, Study.com
• DiStefano J.J., Maznevski M.L., Creating Value with Diverse Teams in Global Management. Organizational Dynamics, 2000.

About Jennifer Campbell

Jennifer Campbell is a Senior Change & Transformation Expert, Leadership & Organization Development Professional, Executive & Relationship Systems Coach and also the Creator & Host of the annual Systemic Leadership Summit. She has over 24 years of worldwide professional experience, of which the last 6 through her own company. 

Jennifer has worked with leaders and professionals in fortune global 500 companies such as Ford Motor Company, Hewlett Packard, Vodafone Group, NTT, Air France-KLM Group, Deutsche Bank, Royal Philips and Telstra Corporations. She is a speaker and presenter at international conferences covering topics like Leadership in Complex Times, Systemic Leadership for Transformation and Understanding and Celebrating Diversity.

Jennifer's mission is to help leaders, teams and organizations change and transform towards growth, success and happiness in life, and to do business in an increasingly complex international context. https://www.jennifercampbell.com