Why You Should Care, When You Hear "Women in (Insert-awesome-here)"

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If you haven't eye-rolled or skimmed past this article yet, congratulations, you are about to change your company and its strategies for the better.

Whenever I have seen "Women-in-something" debates, I see two sides of the coin - the pro and the against. And I think I know the reason why. People are uncomfortable to admit there is a diversity issue in most STEM related industries. I was surprised to see even executive level female leaders questioning such groups and entities, in fear that these "women-in" events / circles are a way to exclude while claiming to be inclusive.

Messaging is important

When carrying out "women in " events / forums / circles, the messaging should always point to diversity - the vision can be to increase more women in certain STEM related industry by fostering a mentoring network. However the actual events should encourage and in fact include male and female representatives helping together to create more 'equality in representation' or further opportunities for women to rise in their career ladder.

Know your customer

Not the regulation talk. For any and almost all global companies, female customers are part of the equation for making diverse portfolio sales and this is of great importance, that will affect your brand and your success over time. The way to understand and determine how both the sexes think, feel, understand, react and eventually accept your sevice or product, comes from reaching and understand very broad range of consumers and customers, women included.

Coaching Matter!

"Women-in-somethingAwesome" circles need to train and understand their stakeholders and acknowledge that their male counterparts currently speak a different language. Research shows the male counterparts wordings are more "factual and goal-oriented" when it comes to career progression / recognition words and females use more "feelings / sof-tone / belief " words to what they want to achieve.

Words Matter!

Throughout my 14 years of technology-related careers, I have heard men in my office say “I want the next job. We’re opening an office in (insert-country-here), I want to do it.” And the women, when I tried to talk them into taking on something new, were often sceptic and careful and risk-avoiding, often saying "Maybe they will think otherwise" , "Maybe the transition is not a good idea", "I believe I can still learn more in my current role".

Dear women, NO! It is up to YOU to make "bossy", "ambition", or "leadership" - a GOOD word to use! You’re further behind at the outset. It is up to you to ask and demand for it if you feel you deserve it. Politely challenge those who question you. It is not arrogance to ask Questions! What makes you a better candidate for a position than your colleagues? What do you bring in to the team? Why they should consider your proposal - does it elevate the financial or brand-related indexes? 

A great topic from McKinsey says, "The probability that a woman was going to be perceived as bossy, aggressive, intimidating—words that we specifically asked about—versus men who asked for the same thing, right, was almost 30 percent more likely.

That’s enormous. Talk about unconscious bias!"

What would help in this case? Write down. Write down what you as a women in your company want to achieve in terms of career-growth. Is it being the next senior role? Is it more recognition? Is it a new initiative or intrapreneurship, and gather around a trusted circle of colleagues who can help push you through it together. The win is not just yours as individual, but YOURS as a group.

Diversity Is Strategic. 

Companies should consider un-bias trainings for leaderships. It reduces the age-old untraditional notion that "maybe a woman will not be that good in sales" or maybe a female leader will have a softer messaging. We have really far to go before we do not need "women-in-somethingawesome" forums anymore. One of the reasons is acceptance takes time. And that is OK. It is upto both genders to make sure diversity, un-biased careers and ambition training from HR is a hot topic and take up strategies to create more diversity in not just ethnicity hirings, but gender equal hirings as well.

Making the forums goal-oriented.

While we are in this topic, I believe that the women-in forums should be goal oriented. Is it to spin out 20 trainings a year for leadership for women? Is it to set-up help-desks or mentors for women to reach out to in C-suite level females and learn to think bigger and lead more? Is it to train them to ask? Ask for that higher salary, ask for that block of equity that you deserve for bringing in millions to your company, ask for that position that you worked so far and so hard for, and as you go along, make sure you note down the metrics. And if you do not get what you want, you have options to change that situation.

Here is some Management 101: if you really care about a problem, you’re going to set KPIs on the the outcomes, you’re going to set goals and targets, and then, if you’re not hitting them, you’re going to look hard at WHY? This I believe is the key for programmes like Girls Who Code, Women in Tech, Women in Company and so on.

With that in mind, I encourage you to comment on what you think will make for a successful "women-in" initiative. What would persuade these forums to likely succeed and eventually not be needed anymore?