The Glass Ceiling: Not just for women anymore!

Odds are if you're reading this blog, you're familiar with the term "glass ceiling".  Also, most readers would associate the glass ceiling with women in the workplace.  However, a recent article in Harvard Business Review, written by Andrew O'Connell says that the glass ceiling may have less to do with gender than historically thought. 

A team led by Mark C. Frame of Middile Tennessee State University analyzed data from more than 14,000 people (both men and women) and found that "the higher you go on the corporate ladder, the more you're among people who put a lot of stock in assertiveness and independance."  These qualities are called "agentic" qualities, opposed to "communal" qualities like caring about other's feelings. 

Basically, the nicer you are the less likely you are to be promoted, regardless of your gender.  While this may be somewhat of a relief to women in organizations who aspire to ascend the corporate ladder, this is disturbing in the sense that the study is saying that to be leaders, we need to focus more on ourselves and  less on our peers and followers.  Now that last sentence may be overblown as Frame's team goes on to say that "success and upward mobility in corporate environments may require more task focused behaviors."  Now that's not so bad, however, O'Connell goes on to add that the glass ceiling, "may block anyone who places great importance on selflessness or concern for others." 

So what's a sensitive caring guy supposed to do?  Well, essentially, they may need to play a role within the organization, bringing out the agentic qualities when needed.  This may lead to a large amount of stress however when acting outisde of your true personality.  For that reason, Frame says that communal managers would be best suited to have a network of friends or family to express their communal side outside of work. 

So, the moral of this story is that, to get ahead, you've got to put yourself first.  This seems to fly in the face of what we were taught as kids and to some extent in business school.  Also, if you can't naturally put yourself first...pretend you can.  While this does explain how a former boss of mine has climbed so high, it certainly doesn't speak well for the future of organizations as the markets shift into a dynamic that not just desires, but expects high levels of customer service. 

Wrapping up, good news for women because the glass ceiling may have been broken for you, but bad news for everyone if the only way to climb the corporate ladder is to not worry about how many faces you step on in the process.

-Adam Porth

Equality for women in the workplace - who is responsible?

As a society, many of us expect organizations to be socially responsible, green, philanthropic, etc.  When dissecting the make-up of an organization and its ability to achieve these things, it’s also important to keep in mind that the first goal of an organization (excluding non-profits) is to make money.  Successful organizations find a good balance between bottom-line profit and re-investment in the organization and communities through social responsibility and stewardship.  Many even have the mission of achieving a triple-bottom line.  Successful organizations also carefully maintain a continual focus on becoming stronger organizations. 

One aspect of organizational make-up that can greatly affect the strength of an organization is the on-going inequality of women versus men in the workplace.  The following statistics support the fact that there is indeed still inequality between men and women:

o   Board Member Make-up:

§  In the US, for Fortune 500 companies, 15% of board members are women

§  In the UK, 12.5% of board members are women

§  In Asia, the number of women on boards is in single digits

o   Pay Gaps: 

§  17% difference in the UK

§   15% in the European Union

§  23% in the US

Women who have an appropriate education level, experience and leadership skills are still encountering a “glass ceiling” that is difficult to penetrate.  Women are aware of this glass ceiling; 75% of women believe there are barriers to them reaching senior management whereas only 38% of men feel the same way.  The glass ceiling can create inequity for women who can’t penetrate the barriers for higher salaries and more prestigious positions.  Each of us strives for balance; as a result, women may be de-motivated in organizations with glass ceilings.

So inequality exists, but what historically has been done about it?  Some countries have tried to “force” organizations to decrease the inequality of women.  For example, Norway implemented quota that requires that a board must consist of 40% women for publicly traded companies.  If companies do not comply with this law, they are threatened with termination of the organization.  Organizations who do not want to comply, in the past, however, have taken their companies private or moved their headquarters to the United Kingdom.

France has also implemented a policy to increase the percentage of women on company boards.   The penalty for not complying compared to Norway’s law, however is much less severe.  Germany also enforced a “Self Commitment” requirement for organizations about 10 years ago.  The requirement consisted of organizations committing to hiring and maintaining higher percentages of women on their boards.  Ten years after this was enacted, the German DAX30 is only comprised of 2.2% women board members.

Obviously some of these policies aren’t working, but the research firms Catalyst and McKinsey and Company have found that having women on boards has shown to bring higher profit, better share price growth, higher quality earnings, better decisions and better innovation within organizations.  In addition, diversity in general results in higher creativity in decision-making, better understanding and service of customers, more satisfied workforce, higher stock process and lower litigation expenses.

Aforementioned, organizations exist to make money; so as organizations see other organizations with leadership teams comprised of a roughly equal number of men and women do well, could this drive them to also change their leadership teams to include more women? Also, if this starts happening, could the policies that haven’t worked in the past become more powerful similar to policies regarding race have in the past?  I think a powerful question regarding this issue is - will these policies help businesses make money?  The answer to this question should determine the type of policies (if any) that should be implemented to address the issue.

References:

http://blogs.forbes.com/sashagalbraith/2011/02/25/women-quotas-will-it-break-the-plexi-glass-ceiling/
Who gets the carrot and who gets the stick? Evidence of gender disparities in executive remuneration. Kulich, Clara; Trojanowski, Grzegorz; Ryan, Michelle K.; Alexander Haslam, S.; Renneboog, Luc D. R.. Strategic Management Journal, Mar2011, Vol. 32 Issue 3, p301-321, 21p; Retrived from Business Source Premier (Milner Library); Accession Number 57096249

-Jessica Brown

Learn to embrace the tension of diversity

Are spices always bad? Definitely not, if mixed in the right quantity makes a delicious cuisine. It is the peculiarity of each individual spice that adds up to make cuisine delightful for the taste buds. Similar is the case with diversity at workplace where differences and similarities amongst the employees from different cultural backgrounds if used at the right place will make an organization victorious. As the businesses go global, people from different parts of the world with different values, culture, age, race, religions come together to serve the common purpose of economic growth. As stated in the article, differences in perceptions, opinions, and competencies can be an asset for the organization, but managing diversity can be a challenging. Due to similarity attraction phenomenon, there are communication gaps, interpersonal conflicts, and lack of cohesiveness among the team members slowing down the decision making process.

In today’s highly competitive scenario, it is vitally important for organizations to hire leaders who can effectively handle the diversity tension and benefit from the advantages of diversity. It is critical for the leaders to respect the diversity and to build cultural intelligence. Making continuous efforts in the direction of understanding the dynamics of diversity through historical, political and economic references and in learning different working style will enable a leader to effectively utilize diverse talents and competencies in the right place. Not only should the leader encourage training programs explaining diversity differences and inculcating respect for different cultures in team, but also work on minimizing differences among his team members.

A leader should develop a work environment where people are welcomed for giving valuable ideas and opinions while giving time and opportunity to understand each other’s cultural differences. This would help in developing a well-rounded team, whose benefits will outnumber the efforts made to put them together as a team. With diverse people brainstorming together for more creative and innovative ideas, organizations would benefit from better problem solving and organization flexibility.  By avoiding ethnocentrism, a leader can use rich diversity of culture and thought around the world as one of the greatest resources to face the competition and bring positive change in corporations.

Reference-

http://blogs.hbr.org/goldsmith/2010/06/learn_to_embrace_the_tension_o.html

Sarita Sharma

Impact of Diversity on Amazon and Wal-Mart !!

I have read an article about how Amazon is expected to outgrow Wal-Mart. It is interesting to see how Amazon has benefited by overcoming their bias towards traditional practices and giving importance to diversity and how Wal-Mart has suffered with low growth and lawsuits due to their organization’s culture.

The growth of Amazon has been extraordinary in the recent years. Currently, Amazon has been busy with many projects, exploring new areas and participating in the market shift looking for all possible opportunities. Amazon has realized early that dynamic markets require diversity in approach, vision and thinking, and have overcome their bias which was critical for their success. Amazon has increased its employment by 45% last year and has transformed into more than an online book retailer.

With the information available in this article, it is clearly evident that diversity in the company’s culture, vision, approach and thinking has been an important part of Amazon’s success story. Diversity helps Organizations benefit with higher creativity in decision making, better understanding and service to customers, more satisfied workforce, higher stock prices, lower litigation expenses and all together a improved company performance. Amazon has clearly experienced these benefits as mentioned in detail in the article. 

On the other side we have Wal-Mart which has been experiencing low growth. Wal-Mart has recently faced a lawsuit from former female workers. This lawsuit was regarding the company’s discrimination against female workers and how it awarded compensations and promotions. It is also learnt that the company’s culture has a big influence on managers’ decisions.

I would not say that Wal-Mart has been losing on their growth only because of their diversity issues. But looking at their problems like stagnation of growth and lawsuits regarding gender differences, earning gaps and glass ceiling, it is directly indicating that there are a lot of diversity issues which need to be addressed.  Looking at how organizations are benefited from being diverse, Wal-Mart has to use this lawsuit as a wakeup call and start looking at being open to diversity in all aspects of their business. 

Reference:

http://blogs.forbes.com/adamhartung/2011/04/26/why-amazon-out-grows-wal-mart-overcoming-bias/

Krishna Garimella 

Introduction

Welcome!! Shattering the glass ceiling was a popular term  used in organizations during the 1980s referring to the invisible barriers for women in the work force. Today, however, it means something more than just the barriers for women and extends to diversity in general. One of the most important tasks for any organization today is to effectively manage diversity issues.

This blog is created by Jessica Brown, Krishna Garimella, Adam Porth and Sarita Sharma to bring to light some of the recent examples of how organizations are managing their diversity issues.  It will include valuable discussions comparing real practice with the theories and concepts of Organizational Behavior. We invite you to join in our discussions and share your valuable insights.