Yesterday I wrote about the lunch I attended on Tuesday and the question I asked David Gonski about quotas. I didn’t write about what happened next. After the formalities were over a chief executive, who is also a Male Champion of Change and was seated at my table, asked to tell me about his experience encouraging executives to hire more women. He said dangling a carrot was always more effective than dangling a stick and gave me several examples. As he explained his perspective, and I explained mine, a few people came over to talk to him and a couple were even kind enough to say they liked my question.
That feedback and having engaged in a thoughtful dialogue with one executive was enough to make me think it had been a lunchtime well spent. As I was exiting via a long escalator a woman who was standing with two other women, came over. She is a finance executive, and a Women’s Agenda reader, who wanted to thank me for asking the question.
Within about thirty seconds we had reached consensus: quotas are certainly not ideal but what is the viable alternative to the impasse that currently prevents women from progressing? Within five minutes of huddling together the four of us had exchanged stories of the ways in which that impasse presents itself.
One former investment banker explained that despite being on the diversity committee and working for a company that was seemingly committed to retaining women, she was passed over for a promotion because she was pregnant. And she knows it’s because she was pregnant because she was told. Directly.
She stayed on for a bit longer but despite “absolutely loving” that line of work she ended up resigning. Having kids and having that job wasn’t possible. She’s taken a substantial pay cut and now works in a less demanding job which works out because she is well supported in also raising her family.
On the one hand you might be tempted to describe that as “leaning out” or not “leaning in”. But the stark reality is she was “leaning in” when she came back to work quickly after her first baby and worked towards the promotion. But, despite her determination and obvious commitment to work and have a family, she was overlooked. And it sent a clear message about what was and wasn’t to be embraced. So did she lean out or was she pushed out?
In the bigger picture, she explained, her current job “ticks many boxes”. It’s a story and a sentiment I hear often and each time I do, I lament the opportunity cost – for the individuals, the companies and industries that lose out.
Her eyes lit up when talking about her former career and who knows where she may have ended up? She misses out on having the career she really wanted and the company and the industry miss out on a potential female leader.
And, frustratingly, it increases the likelihood that the same thing will happen again. The fewer female executives there are, the fewer female executives there will be. Every time the right candidate is overlooked for a job or a promotion because she’s pregnant (or because she “might” one day become pregnant), it sends a message to everyone else – above and below – about what is valued and accepted. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Those who get promoted invariably reflect those doing the promoting. Rebooting that cycle is the most persuasive argument for quotas or targets with consequences. Because quotas, or targets with consequences, tackle two problems at once: they boost the representation of women and, in doing so, they broaden the base from which future promotions will be selected. We’d only need quotas for a short period of time before they would effectively reset the status quo.