“Women make shit happen, women get shit done. Want to do less work and make more money? That’s the answer.”
Equality campaigner and former senior advertising exec Cindy Gallop seriously knows how to tell it like it is.
While I couldn’t get to the Mumbrella 360 conference in Sydney this week where Gallop was speaking, I was very happy to hear she was involved, and would be there to offer her no bullshit approach to how the advertising and marketing industries can do better.
And as Mumbrella editor Alex Hayes reported from Gallop’s session this week, she certainly gave it her all. Telling the crowd that there’s a “goddam shit-tonne of money” to be made from businesses that embrace diversity and that any new business starting with an “all-white male leadership team will never own the future.”
Will. Never. Own. The. Future.
We often hear about the ‘business case’ for diversity. How businesses need to support a diverse range of talent in order to get the best range of perspectives and ultimately see improvements in the bottom line.
The ‘business case’ is clearly too soft an approach. Progress for women in leadership across all industries continues to be glacially slow. Sure, as Australian of the Year David Morrison recently told Women’s Agenda, many men in very senior positions of power at large organisations ‘get it’, but venture one or two rungs down the leadership ladder and many men don’t.
We need to put the business case aside and start talking the Business Survival Case instead.
Business survival is now a matter of being a leading innovator, a leading employer, a leading representative of what your customer base actually looks like. It’s a matter of producing smarter ways of working and creating that bring out the best in talent.
It’s a matter of owning the future, as Gallop said addressing the advertising and marketing industries.
Indeed, it’s a matter of making a “huge amount of money”. And what kind of business doesn’t want to do that?
Tokenism, a woman here and there, is simply not good enough. Organisations need to “bulk buy” diverse people, Gallop said, in order to actually change the ratio, and change the success of the business. Meanwhile, a gender diverse environment will instantly remove negative dynamics, such as sexual harassment.
Gallop’s session addressed how ‘Advertising Can Change The World’ but there were clearly lessons on offer for all industries.
So where can businesses get started on owning the future? In a recorded interview following her session (see below) she said the “closed loop of white guys talking to other white guys” needs to be identified and quickly addressed.
She said agencies should look at every area that is male dominated and change that instantly. Tell the HR department that you’re looking for non-white, female candidates who have “potential” to do the job – not those who’ve done the job before. “Men are hired and promoted on potential. Women are hired and promoted on proof.”
So that’s the message for agencies, but one that any organisation thinking about their Business Survival Case might want to consider. Only then can you own the future.