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Best Practices (Institutional and Individual) for Development of Women Leaders

15 Dec 2014

Best Practices (Institutional and Individual) for Development of Women Leaders

On 31 October 2014 Angela Searle and I attended the New Zealand Law Society Conference - “Women - the Law and the Corner Office” as guests of the Canterbury Women’s Legal Association. The keynote speaker for this conference was Mary Cranston. Ms Cranston has been described as an influential pioneer of gender diversity in the workplace. She was the first woman to lead a global 100 law firm and has been named one of the “hundred most influential lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal and in 2005 received the highest award for a woman lawyer by the American Bar Association.

1. In her presentation to us Ms Cranston talked about unconscious bias. It was a fascinating presentation. It enabled one to appreciate the issues but also observe a woman whose power and influence was not derived by thumping the table but by determination. Then after achieving her success, she has worked to pave the way for other women.
2. In the remainder of this article I set out what I took from Mary’s presentation. Hopefully I can do justice to the polished presentation that left most of the audience in awe of her honesty as to herself and her abilities, and the challenges for women as both employees and employers to appreciate, then develop strategies to deal with unconscious bias in the workplace.
3. Mary’s view is that women are affected by unconscious bias from the beginning of their lives. Mary herself was not immune and she admitted that until she was 20 she wanted to be a “good girl” and get A’s. This she said was typical of the attitude that many women bring to their workplace. Mary had a twin sister who was “wired quite differently” and she knew she wanted to be a doctor as soon as she thought about careers. Her sister went on to become one of the first vascular surgeons in the United States of America. Mary herself had no inner sense of what she wanted to do but she knew she wanted to “compete” with her sister. On that basis she needed to get a doctorate. She then went to law school and after that to the biggest law firm in the area. She said that this was “a good choice” made by a “good girl”.
4. In the law firm, she quickly realised she was “swimming” in a sea of men. Initially, she was “quite happy to be there”. After a few years she slowly recognised that women in her law firm were not getting the same opportunities as the men. She felt a sense of unease. However, her focus was on making partnership and that was all she wanted to do. She made partner but after a while she realised that she wanted to be a big trial lawyer and a “rainmaker” in the firm. Hence she went from achieving the goal of being a partner to then setting herself another goal of being a major rainmaker in the firm as well as a “big trial lawyer”. It was at this stage in the presentation that she said that the only person who can know your goals is yourself. However in her case she knew the goal but she had no idea how to do it. What she did was she took “baby steps every day”. She was completely focussed on the goal such that other stuff just sorted itself out. It was through prioritising what steps were relevant to her goal that she was able to find time to take those baby steps each day.
5. During this stage in her career, she ignored the unconscious bias and admitted that at this stage she did not even “recognise it”. In terms of her goals when she realised she could do more than she initially thought, she stopped caring about being famous and being a big rainmaker in the firm. In her view this was her stopping trying to be safe. In the inside she changed. I got the impression here that this is the point at which she had made it to safe ground and gave herself the luxury of looking around her, and wondered why so few other women had joined her.
6. At this stage of the presentation Mary returned to talk about the goals she had. She pointed out that in focussing on her goals and ignoring other things, she had the strength to say no to a lot of other things in the law firm which would have taken her time but not assisted her in her goal setting. However in saying no, she emphasised the importance of doing so “tactfully”. In terms of her husband and children she applied the same techniques regarding work and goals. She got clear about what was the most important thing to do in the family. She accepted that in doing this, she did not stay in touch with friends and was able to reconnect with some friends when the children were older. In terms of her contribution to the community, she got involved in the community projects which were her favourites. One in particular was her involvement with Stanford University. From that a lot of interesting things opened up. In terms of other things, she simply said no.
7. In terms of the unconscious bias, Mary referred to this as the “uneasy, unmentionable thing”. Stereotyping she said was just a means through which you see the world and the stereotyping that we have had developed over hundreds of years. Male/female stereotypes were set very early in our culture and we do not even know we have them.
8. The research shows that the strongest stereotype is:Men take charge; Women take care.  This stereotype creates a real problem and there is a cause. Women are believed unconsciously to have much less ability for leadership. The statistics show that over time women do not go up the ladder. These differences in sexes are measurable. Men do not look at a woman and measure how good she would be in a leadership role. They look at a woman in the workplace to retain her but do not push her or challenge her. These stereotypes she said are not malicious but are unconscious. So they can be “trumped”.
9. The question is what can a woman do in a world to succeed with this unconscious bias? Mary said her generation was the first to really move up the leadership ladder but also the first generation to do so with children. Before then they had no role models and they succeeded despite unmentionable, unconscious bias.
10. In a study (McKenzie), a number of top women including top CEOs, Heads of State and top lawyers were asked, “How did you get to this position?”
11. The answers show five patterns of behaviour that would trump stereotyping. McKenzie used this information to design a programme for the centre of leadership. There were staggering results when women were involved in this programme in terms of their development.
12. How do remarkable women lead?

1. Meaning:

• Women chase work that they could be passionate about
• Women need commitment to the job
• “Magic Wand world” – if there were no limits what would you be?
• “Signature strengths” – as a child what did you like to do? How that felt?
• Look at life – how do you get the same things back?

2. Energizing

• Get clear at home or work, what really matters? Mary referred to that as her strategic ‘no’. She said this applies even to the small things.

3. Connecting

• Connecting gets you more promotions etc.
• Men have broader, shallower networks – which she referred to as the “quid pro quo model”.
• Women have fewer relationships but they are deep
• Women do not like to trade in on their contacts – taking advantage
• Take baby steps
• Women pitch networking as going into a large room full of male strangers
• Mary said that when she set a new goal she would sit down and think about this carefully. This could take one weekend or so – then she would take “baby steps” regarding that goal. Persistence she saw as the key.
• You might not succeed at first but just keep going.
• It is important to use networking to develop sponsors. In this regard men are open to sponsoring women and it is important to remember this.
• Networks can compound over time.

4. Engaging

• In a biased world, women have to be resilient. Resilience is natural in a male dominated world and women making mistakes potentially faced greater detriment.
• It was easy to self-promote once you have the goal.

In terms of telling stories instead of direct self-promotion, she would create an elevated pitch to get the client or person of influence to take notice of her. In this regard she had stories that she could tell that showed how she had delivered. These stories were useful for keeping her in the conversation and showing that she was relevant. They also showed that she should not be dismissed. There were risks and sometimes she did not succeed but often the risks she took would pay off at a later stage in other ways.

In terms of negotiation, she said it was well recognised that men, not women, are good at negotiating for themselves. This may be one of the reasons why men on the whole are paid more than women. She said that we should negotiate and should not stop.

5. Training

Mary said it was important to appreciate that the only place that she could do things is the present moment. When you take this approach you liberate yourself. So much more can be accomplished because, instead of dwelling on the past and dreading the future, you do the things that can be done at the moment. Early on Mary herself used to carry around with her a massive to do list. Now she has a real to do list which she does in the moment, not a to do list which is simply undoable.

Mary sees this as the most important thing that women can do to enable them to lead. She said how you see a situation will determine how you react and the results. Women’s brains are wired so they are more likely to see an event from a negative perspective. Women, she said, are natural pessimists and men are natural optimists. However this is not to say that the position has to stay that way as one can do a lot of work on one’s brain to re-programme. Women, she said, tend to have a negative lean. Mary herself knew enough to stop this by saying this is “probably” not true.

13. The final part on Mary’s presentation was on what institutions and organisations can do to remove unconscious bias in the workplace.

14. Mary referred us to the article by Justice Susan Glazebrook (“It’s just a matter of time and other Myths” – 2013) which she said was excellent. In terms of the five things that organisations could do that are the most effective her list was as follows:

1. Organisations need to get up to speed on the reality of unconscious bias. She quoted organisations that have done this and remarkable progress has been made in their workplace (ie Harvard and Google).
2. The cooperation of men who have an innate concept of fairness are likely to be the greatest champions for change.
3. Specific objectives to specifically promote women and retain women are required.
4. It needs to be appreciated that it is not the hours worked that is the most important thing but the value provided. When I questioned her on how this is done in her workplace she said that what her firm did was looked at pricing from a customer’s perspective. A fixed price for clients helps women as it becomes obvious that if a woman came in and did it in two hours when say the job was priced as taking 20 hours then there was an obvious recognition of the benefit that the woman provided as opposed to simply working the 20 hours to justify the time-based recording. The person who sits in the office and does the hours is credited with the fee. In this case there is a real appreciation of the value provided by the employee.
5. Companies need to get very clear on the business case for diversity. In this regard, it is well documented that diversity in a business creates a better bottom line for a business.

15. Mary said there are now a number of accounting firms that have an equal male/female attrition rate in middle management where there has been unconscious bias training and recognition.

16. Mary was asked a question in relation to part time workers and she acknowledged there were unconscious stereotypes about women working once they have had children.

Catherine E Bibbey

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