Month: February 2018

Women Are Calmer under Pressure: New Research

by

New research by Alex Krumer of the University of St. Gallen, as reported in the Harvard Business Review, finds that women respond better to pressure in competitive sports than men do. Krumer and his colleagues analyzed more than 8,200 games from high-stakes Grand Slam tennis matches. They chose to include only the first matches of Grand Slams to control for the fatigue factor. They also chose Grand Slam tennis matches because performance was easy to measure, the monetary incentives and ranking points were the largest out of all the tournaments, and men and women received the same prize money. Krumer and his colleagues found that the men’s performance in unbroken serves deteriorated more than the women’s when the game was at a critical juncture, such as a 4-4 tie. Krumer said, “Among women, we saw barely any difference between pre- and post-tie performance.” While the researchers acknowledge that applying this information to the labor market is difficult, they also speculate that biological differences between men and women identified by other researchers are consistent with their results. These are just two examples:

  • The literature on cortisol, the stress hormone, shows that levels of it increase more rapidly in men than in women, which can hurt performance.
  • Testosterone, a proven performance enhancer, increases after a victory and decreases after a defeat in men but not in women. Spikes in testosterone can lead to overconfidence and higher risk taking.
In previous articles, I reported on studies that show similarities and differences in factors affecting decision making between women and men. The differences in risk-taking behavior show that overconfidence is a major obstacle in making smart decisions. The tennis researchers note that while they cannot demonstrate a direct relationship between performance in Grand Slam tennis matches and competence in the business world, other research shows significant differences, probably at least partially biologically based, in how women and men handle pressure. The researchers suggest that we consider the variety of roles in which we want leaders who can stay calm under pressure, such as CEOs and political leaders with control of nuclear weapons. Krumer suggests that “if you’re talking about mental toughness, maybe in certain circumstances it’s women who have the edge,” yet we have a dearth of women in CEO (4 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives) and political leadership roles. Clearly, that needs to change. What steps are you taking to make a difference?   Image courtesy of businessforward (CC BY 2.0)]]>

How We All Lose When Women Are Devalued

by

A coaching client recently shared with me that while still a college student she was sexually assaulted by an important person at her school. When she told her guidance counselor about it, he advised her to say nothing to protect the reputation of the school. She said nothing. Now, many years later, and thanks to the #MeToo movement and some professional development work she’s engaged in, she has become aware that some of her physical and emotional problems are probably related to the buried trauma from her sexual assault. For the first time, she is starting to talk about what happened to her, which is so important for the healing process. Untreated trauma from sexual assault can cost victims their health, marriages, careers, and their lives if it is not addressed. As Sallie Krawcheck of the New York Times writes, it can seem like a seismic shift is taking place in our culture as the avalanche of sexual harassment and assault stories, previously unspoken, silenced, or disbelieved, come pouring out. While this outpouring is important, Krawcheck notes that sexual harassment is part of a larger problem in our culture: women are demeaned and devalued. The cost of demeaning and devaluing women is not only the high incidence of sexual harassment and a general culture of rape on our college campuses and elsewhere but a problem that’s costing all of us in other ways as well:

  • Women’s ideas are discounted and their talents ignored in all kinds of social, academic, and work settings. In a previous article, I wrote about Krawcheck’s direct experience with the ways that homogeneity on Wall Street resulted in the groupthink that crashed our economy in 2008 with the subprime lending debacle. Krawcheck was fired from a senior leadership position at Smith Barney for diverging from the groupthink of the financial industry and daring to be client focused. We all lost when the market crashed.
  • Krawcheck points out that, “despite research showing that companies with more diversity, and particularly with more women in leadership, offer higher returns on capital, lower risk and greater innovation than firms without such leadership, Wall Street has been, and is, predominantly male at the top,” as are most other sectors of our economy. Without diversity of perspectives and a broad range of skills, poor decisions get made that can have widespread impact on the lives of everyday people.
I agree with Krawcheck that the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are important, but that the current focus on sexual harassment is only one step on the change journey. Valuing girls and women means eliminating gender bias in our workplaces and institutions and creating safe, respectful and inclusive workplaces, schools, and social institutions.   Photo by Sam Valadi, CC BY 2.0.]]>

Why Gender- and Race-Blind Hiring Does Not Work to Combat Bias

by

Two years ago, my niece, an engineer in her twenties with solid work experience, started a new job about which she was very excited. She was one of very few women in this engineering company, which was not unusual. When she returned from maternity leave about six months ago, after having her first child, she was treated so badly by her male manager that she eventually resigned. After her return from maternity leave, her manager took away her meaningful projects and gave her boring work that no one in the company cared about. He denied her requests for flex time, for permission to occasionally work remotely, and for permission to leave early on days when she had medical appointments. He made disparaging remarks about her needing breaks to pump and made comments that implied she was useless to him because she would probably have more babies. She complained to HR who said nothing could be done. She could not thrive there. With every day that passed, she felt worse about the company and began to doubt herself. She left. Organizations think they can solve the problems of underrepresentation of white women and women and men of color in their workforce by using gender- and race-blind résumé screening to eliminate bias in the hiring process. Katharine Zaleski of the New York Times describes “blind hiring” as a dangerous trend. In this process, the names of candidates are removed from résumés and voices are altered during phone interviews to “mask” the gender and race of candidates in an attempt to eliminate bias. Zaleski cites studies showing that blind hiring does not work because

  • The résumés of white women and women and men of color still get screened out when gaps in a résumé signal the applicant is probably a woman who took time out for caregiving, or when the names of colleges, college majors, or volunteer activities indicate the applicant may be a person of color.
  • Even if the blind résumé gets a candidate through an initial round of screening, the biases of hiring managers kick in later during the traditional in-person interview.
  • Using blind-hiring processes does nothing to create organizational cultures where white women and women and men of color can thrive. Once hired, they will not stay if the organization has not worked to create an inclusive culture where diversity is valued.
Zaleski notes that blind hiring “is a misguided distraction from the hard work of evaluating and fixing the ways in which their cultures drive out” white women and women and men of color. My niece now works for a different company. Her new boss is a woman with young children who is relaxed and confident about parents being good workers. The organization has solid family-friendly policies and practices. My niece says her goal is to work hard, do her best work, and advance as a professional in her new company. In other words, she feels she can thrive there. Her old company pushed her out and lost a valuable employee because of gender biases. That didn’t have to happen.   Photo by Amtec Staffing, CC BY-SA 2.0.  ]]>

How One Small Business Fights Global Gender Inequality

by

Have you ever wished you could have more of an impact on making the world a better place? Do you ever feel you are not doing enough to make a difference? I have thought and felt all these things, and I was truly inspired by the story of one young entrepreneur’s business plan to fight gender inequality in the coffee industry, reported by Dan Hyman of the New York Times. While still in her twenties, Alyza Bohbot decided to take control of her family’s coffee roasting business and spin off an exciting new business. She wanted both to save the family business, which her parents were ready to close or sell, and to have a positive social impact. Hyman writes that, while attending an International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) conference in Seattle, Alyza heard the story of a Columbian widow who lost her family’s coffee farm because of her gender. As a woman, the widow was not allowed to make decisions about her own business because of cultural norms. Hyman reports that Alyza also learned that, “according to the International Trade Center, women do 70 percent of the work in getting coffee to market but regularly cede or are barred from financial control.” It was during the IWCA conference that Alyza got her idea to form the new business, the City Girl Coffee Company, to make a difference for women in the coffee industry. As a result, City Girl Coffee Company

  • Buys its beans exclusively from farms and cooperatives that are owned or managed by women.
  • Donates 5 percent of all profits to organizations that support women in the industry.
Hyman writes that, as a result, women who sell to City Girl Coffee Company are viewed as leaders in their communities and say they now have their own identities. Alyza’s business, based in Minnesota, is booming and she feels she is able to make a difference. “I feel hopeful,” she explains. We women are demanding “our place in society.” Do you know a small business that is making this type of positive impact for women? Let us hear your stories.   Photo by Shared Interest, CC BY 2.0.]]>