Opportunity to address lack of women in leadership - help!

[CloseTheGap]

NC for obvious reasons.

I'm coming up to the end of my first 3 months at a senior position in a medium-size tech company and so am preparing my 3-month review. One of the acknowledged issues in the leadership team is serious inefficiencies caused by silos and lack of x-functional thinking and cooperation. Everyone has been told to make this a priority.

I did some digging into our org charts and came up with these pie charts. Women make up around 1/3 of the total headcount and that is reflected at junior management level, but there's a sudden drop-off when it comes to senior management positions and above. By the time it gets to the leadership team, one 1/7 of the positions have female incumbents.

One of my observations is that meetings are dominated by men, who often speak over or interrupt their female colleagues. The leadership team is also male-dominated and this shows in the company's policies, procedures and culture, including the siloed thinking. The culture is not laddish BTW. I want to make the argument that the company would be more efficient if they had more women in senior positions (evidence, for e.g: BBC link "It's not just a nice to have. The research is clear: firms with diverse boards and management teams make better decisions, drive innovation and outperform their less diverse peers.") and that to do that, we need to understand and tackle the cliff-edge when it comes to filling senior positions.

I could really use some help in turning this observation into a persuasive argument, especially as I'll be presenting it to my male boss. He's perfectly friendly and open to new ideas but has probably not even thought about this before. All ideas welcome!

What evidence do you have to back up the assertion that diverse boards make better decisions? Your argument is perfectly sound, but you should have some evidence to back up each stage of it.
I can't dig it out as I'm on holiday, but there's also evidence that women are better in meetings as they are more specific about decisions and who will do what and when, as well as keeping decisions documented.

There's a significant body of good quality research showing that diverse boards make better decisions, so I can pull studies and data if needed. It's an interesting point about meetings. I've had compliments on how I run meetings: short, to the point, with clear actions, deadlines and owners and I minute and follow up. It would be good if this is recognised as a skill-set associated with women more generally.

@CloseTheGap Well done for wanting to address this and being willing to use your platform, even though you are in the minority.

As an outsider I'd say - are there already initiatives the org has started? It might be easier to strengthen your argument if it aligns to previous staff survey results, damning exit interviews, a new strategic plan or gender pay gap reporting etc.

Are there are pressures to be more inclusive (promises to shareholders, vocal customer groups, signing up to industry initiatives to be more diverse) which could also be added to the argument?

Appreciate this isn't what you were asking. I'd also ask, what is it you want to come from your review meeting on this topic?

A) Your boss to say 'Close the gap' - I totally agree - can I task you with setting up a women's network/an inquiry/a plan/a staff survey

B) Your boss to say, I agree, let's work together on coming up with a plan

C) Your boss to say, you have my agreement for you to raise this with HR etc

Have you had a chance to work out the decision making around this sort of thing? Is it the SLT (do you sit on it, sorry wasn't completely sure from your post)? Can you get some allies onside? Where is HR in all of this, assuming you have one?

Obvs I don't know your org, but I wondering if the barrier won't be acceptance of the idea (or maybe I am being very naive!), but what can be done about it and if you are the woman raising it they may well expect you to have the answer. So if I were you I'd want a clear idea in my head of next steps - it could be a great opportunity!

On the topics of meetings, I often try to bring women back in (even if I am not the chair) if they have been blocked. "Chair Dave, can I encourage Sarah to continue?". Or "Sarah, I think you were just saying something?"

If you want to go in softer, maybe suggest some sort of effective/strategic meetings training, which can include role playing around bad behaviour etc. Would it be appropriate for you to set something up and run it?

I am sure you have thought of this, and maybe it would be difficult due to the fact some will be competitors, but I would connect in with women in tech networks. I am sure you are not alone, and they might have case studies of what has worked.

Good luck.

Are you trying to address the lack of female representation at senior level, or to stop people working in silos?

You outlined the silo thing as an identified aim - but the rest of your post is about the sex gap.

If you are aiming to solve one problem by solving the other you need to make that clear and frame your evidence accordingly. Clarify the message!

Good point. I generally observed the sex gap, then thought about how it might be contributing to the silo situation and how fixing the issues behind the gap might also fix the silos. Slightly convoluted but it's a very male tech-geek culture where people are perfectionists over their own little bit of a project but aren't interested in the bigger picture. I was on a project call this week where the project lead was totally ok with a launch slipping by a month 'because we knew that would happen and we'll just make up another date anyway' and that was completely accepted . He's more interested in the niftyness of his code than in delivering the product.

I'm not on the executive team yet but am quite willing to push. I've already brought it up with the VP HR. I come from a massive company that was involved in women in tech so can ask for ideas - good shout.

Don’t be tempted to “fix the women”. Fix the bias and the problem takes care of itself.

Have you read “Invisible Women” OP?

do you know of any training aimed at interrupting male bias? That's what's at the root of the problem, and that needs to be fixed to affect both the pay/representation gap and the silos. Because, ultimately, the problem you've just explained comes down to male toxic arrogance - I know what's best for me, so screw the big picture.
However, it can be hard to sell that viewpoint, and often you get further with the argument that women should be represented equally. Either way, the ultimate aim is to get people out of entrenched ways of thinking.
The point that over 51% of the population is female, and ignoring the skills they have to offer is potentially damaging/limiting the business can be persuasive.