To think that on International Women's Day the last thing I need is "inspiration" from someone with wraparound childcare and a lucky career?

[toomuchtooold]

I'm not going to point to specific examples (as I don't want to get outed and fired) but I'm sure there are many of you out there today logging on to your computers, seeing the corporate intranet landing page load up and on it there is an interview with some high up in your company talking about how she got to be so successful. I'm going to guess that the article somewhere mentions

• "you can do whatever you want if you set your mind to it"
• "mentors are so important/so and so was such an inspiration to me"
• "being an example to my son/daughter"

What they never seem to mention is

• being in maybe the top 1% of earners and therefore having the means to pay for wraparound childcare
• never having been made redundant, despite often working for companies that go through restructuring on a regular basis

AIBU to think that these success stories of the highly privileged are just big business doing a bit of victim blaming, implying that we could all be captains of industry with lovely lives if ony we had a bit of aspiration and hard work, when in actual fact these interviews depict the lives of a privileged few, and most companies' business models would be bust if we all expected to be earning at that level?

Isn't it funny how 'it' - luck that is, stares so many more 'men' in the face than women?

Luck isn't the only criteria for being successful. At a rough estimate I'd say you need a fortunate combination of:

• a beneficial social structure (that's where men and people with money benefit in the UK)
• a beneficial family structure (as above)
• good luck (that is completely random and outwith anyone's control)
• hard work (that can give you the experience or/and put you in the position to be given an opportunity)
• attitude It's simplistic and insulting to suggest everyone has the same opportunities to be Sheryl Sandberg. Of course they don't. But I don't think we demand that successsful men be representative of their entire sex in the same way we demand it of women.

Sheryl Sandberg never said 'every woman should be like me' She essentially said if you are a woman, with a good education, blue chip experience and leadership, then you should take advantage of it, aspire to top level positions and push yourself forwards. Because other women are reliant on privileged people like you to be role models and to drive change from the top down.

She has never denied that her feminism is focused on wealthy privileged women - because they are the ones with the most power to effect change. If they are not on the board shouting for family friendly policies and mentoring other women, whose going to do that job for us?

Maybe instead of criticising at other women, why don't we direct our anger at the partners who would never consider going part time or doing more housework or childcare to accommodate our ambitions; at the male bosses who won't promote us or pay us the same as our male counterparts, at the old boys club that still says 'relationships' are the most important asset in business while organising business around golf days and going to the pub.

yanbu.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf I like your post a lot .

I think you can be admiring of someone whilst being cynical about the puffery of a particular article.

The inspirational quote is something I fail to find inspiring and it proliferates in modern life; that doesn't mean I'm cynical or that I don't admire and draw inspiration from fellow human beings.

The women who make it to senior positions in organisations are, by definition, unusual.

Helping understand how they got there may provide useful insights for other ambitious people, particularly women. It rarely gives much insight into how to make work more family friendly (which is the main barrier for most women IME) or less macho (a lot of women I know see the behaviour at senior levels and want no part of it).

Someone once said to me "you're such a brilliant role model for working mothers". I just laughed and said "nonsense, I do it exactly the same way the men do - I have a SAHW. If you want a brilliant role model talk to X (another senior woman) who's a single mum"

I agree with winter it would be career suicide for any woman either at the apex or the base of the hierarchy to go for the type of disclosure you suggest is necessary toomuch.

These profiles and inspirational interviews are heavily scripted, and let's not forget, those top women want to come across as high polished, swans on the surface and not a hint of duck paddling furiously beneath! So who is the criticism aimed at? Them for promoting themselves in the best light to protect their position, or the company for putting the "interview" on the intranet? Or maybe both?

But perhaps put yourself in their position, if you were there, would you do differently? Several of us have suggested why do you take the initiative to change things in your company. Strongly you are silent on that.

May I hazard a guess that you don't want to rock the boat "in case you get the sack" as you remarked in your OP. I don't blame you for protecting your employment position, but don't be surprised or disappointed when things don't change. If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got!

Why don't you take the initiative

Strangely

Fat fingers today

Thanks APlace - there are a few typos.

Most corporate commuincations departments would welcome the interaction, if you got in touch and said 'following on from your international woman's day profile' I'd love to read more about:
(1) women across the organisation at every level eg explaining their role and background
or
(2) a day in the life of two senior executives (one male/one female but both with families) showing exactly how they balance their family/work commitments.

The motivation for your company's original profile was obvious we're profiling a woman because it's international women's day . The motivation for (1) above would be obvious - we're celebrating the role of women across the organisation. When it comes to (2) it's more complicated because I'm not sure if your motivation is to show that female executives have a lot of support so somehow that means they're less inspiring ignoring that male executives have that support too or if your motivation is to show that women still have to overcome more barriers to get to the same position as a man and they'll probably still be paid less for the same role once they get there.

Just goes to show its all BS then if those at the top can't talk frankly about how difficult it was to get there or how lucky they were, or how they actually achieved it. Just perpetuating a corporate lie about drive and vision and other BS.

To a certain extent it is BS but partly that's because people are so judgemental.

I know a female CEO who is incredibly successful, has received lots of awards, etc. If you read any profiles about her, it wouldn't say how guilty she feels about not spending enough time with her DCs. Why not? Because some people would see it as a weakness. Some people would say she has no right to complain about it because she made that choice. And some people would say she's got no right to moan because at least she has the childcare that makes it possible.

Just as we get the politicians we deserve; we get the false idols we deserve If that's how you see it.

And to be clear, I don't think she is a false idol. I think she is amazing and inspiring and I always thought that every woman with DCs would look at her and know how bloody difficult it is for her to balance and manage all those competing demands. And they'd be proud that a woman was doing it and showing in a male-dominated industry that women are capable. And that they'd hope she'd run an organisation that helps other women to balance those demands. But this thread has shown that's not the case. Some people are looking at her and saying 'yeah but she's got childcare . . .'

It's 2015 though - why is it not the norm for women to be in these positions? These 'triumph over adversity' stories do nothing to actually ensure change at a mass level as they represent the patriarchal lines of thought about what 'success' and 'equality' in the work place looks like for women. The wrap around care and prosperity of these women is an important feature of their success- in that sense is their influence at a senior level that helpful in steering change as a poster suggested up thread?

We 'know' women are capable, everyone knows that, you have to ask yourself why organisations seem to struggle to go beyond the 'rhetoric'?

My Dad and mum were actively political when they were young- 60's students etc. They believed they'd changed things for our generation, he wanted the same opportunities for me as my brother and I think they thought that would only continue to improve for women. He turns 70 this month and speaking to me recently about this, believes that things have not improved that much at all at the rate his generation experienced and if anything it has got 'slightly worse'. I think he has a point!

"My old company took on 40 graduates a year. It has a board of around 10 people, add maybe another 20 or so senior positions that might be worthy of getting you featured as a Good Example on the corporate intranet. Most of the graduates are not going to end up in those top positions. Most of the graduates, men and women, are going to do perfectly well by getting one or two promotions and then go and have a life and have kids and hobbies and stuff. Most will manage all this on a salary that is not several multiples of the national average. We will never hear about how that life is, because they will never get profiled on the work's intranet."

By definition, anyone who gets to that position is exceptional. People want to know how to achieve that.

Oprah Winfrey is one of those women - read her story and say she came from a place of privilege! She had something in her that fought for a better life.

I work really hard. Always have done. But it really really was down to luck that I landed a client that took my fledgling business turning a pitiful 12 k pa to over 50k per annum. Its my hard work that has kept me the client. But I was just little old ouch who started a business where there are already established similar types. The other companies would kill for my client but it really was a series of odd circumstances that got me there. I could still be working just as hard for very little.

Maybe the answer is not to expect to have inspirational role models via sanitised messages with a corporate filter imposed on them. It just ain't gonna happen! International Women's Day isn't, on the face of it, any different to every other International [fill in the gap] Day, it has 24 hours to give its message then it's onwards to the next one. Minimalist stuff. What about the other 364 days of the year.

If we take someone like Oprah as an example, she isn't beholden to anyone, she can say it like it is, write a book about her life, even have her own TV show. She doesn't have to toe a rigid corporate line. Her story is more credible than a female Corporate VP of Paperclips.

This conversation has really got away from me. A couple of posters asking me what I want to see from corporate comms, what the high level women need to disclose etc. I don't want to see any of it! I think that profiling high level people, alongside meaningless inspirational lines about drive and vision, are designed to make us all feel like "we can do anything if we really want to" = if our current situation isn't great, that's all our own fault. Placing all the responsibility and blame back on the shoulders of the workers means that they will work harder to try and better themselves rather than questioning a system where the people at the top are paid millions while the ones at the bottom barely get a living wage.

It's not going to make any difference if they disclose that they went to a crap school, had to overcome this and that hurdle, etc etc, to get to where they are - by definition, where they are is not that interesting to me as an average person wanting a normal life. They're not even that interesting as a guide to how to get to the top, because of survivor bias - they and we tend to ascribe their success to everything they do, without knowing what really is the difference between them and their cohort who ended up not making it to the top. There's a really interesting if long article about survivor bias here if you can be bothered. I tend to believe the difference between them and their similarly hardworking but less successful peers is things like being in the right place at the right time, hence my initial comment about luck.

ItsCarnage I understand your choice. No matter how senior you are there's always someone else who can and will take the job if you don't, but your kids have only got two parents, you're irreplaceable to them.

I agree with you on your main points. That inspirational mottos and motivational stories about exceptional individuals are often used to berate those who didn't make it and to promote the status quo and existing hierarchy. One of the points about the American Dream is that ordinary Americans will let the 1% get away with tax evasion and corporate larceny because one day 'it might be them' - the joke is that you are less likely to make it out of your socio-economic bracket in the US than you are in Europe.

The context about women and work and International Women's Day rather muddies what was a very good point.

sportinguista that sounds really hard. We have some of the same problems, no family around, new job for me so no goodwill with the employer etc. When I see the "you can do anything if you set your mind to it" stuff I just think, what, can I invent a time machine? Cos I can only be in one place at a time...

Your article (which is an interesting read thanks!) is saying the reverse of what you're saying though....

You suggest that women at the top of the ladder get there because they are "in the right place at the right time", aren't they the lucky ones - so luck plays a significant part in their success (but you think they gloss over that in their interview)

According to your article, what their luck amounts to in reality is that they have the foresight to proactively place themselves in positions of advantage, which I think makes them clever people!

Wiseman saw that the people who considered themselves lucky, and who then did actually demonstrate luck was on their side over the course of a decade, tended to place themselves into situations where anything could happen more often and thus exposed themselves to more random chance than did unlucky people

The article is saying the reverse of what I'm saying? That people in top positions have little to share with the rest of us because they don't know what made them successful (and often what made the difference for them was probably luck)?

Kahneman says, ... “If you group successes together and look for what makes them similar, the only real answer will be luck.”

The problem here is that you rarely take away from these inspirational figures advice on what not to do, on what you should avoid, and that’s because they don’t know. Information like that is lost along with the people who don’t make it out of bad situations or who don’t make it on the cover of business magazines

as Google Engineer Barnaby James writes on his blog, “skill will allow you to place more bets on the table, but it’s not a guarantee of success.” Thus, he warns, “beware advice from the successful.”

Entrepreneur Jason Cohen, in writing about survivorship bias, points out that since we can’t go back in time and start 20 identical Starbucks across the planet, we can never know if that business model is the source of the chain’s immense popularity or if something completely random and out of the control of the decision makers led to a Starbucks on just about every street corner in North America.

The bit you picked talks about what people do who see themselves as lucky. Let's be charitable and say that the women featured on our corporate intranet sites for Women's Day would be humble enough to ascribe their success to luck. Still, the article is suggesting that the useful advice they could give the rest of us is - put yourself out there. And that is great advice and advice I would agree with, but it's not possible for everyone - the more you have, the easier it is to take a risk, because if you fail you won't be plunged into poverty. And you've missed the massive story of the article which is that to understand success it is important to understand failure - which we never hear about in these profiles, partly because people don't want to share it, but also because of survivor bias, the people who succeeded are the ones who didn't fail!