Gender Balance, an accelerator for innovation - Building Gender Balanced Business

Companies have learnt the power of diversity. Many have become more international, and benefit from people of all nationalities working together. They encourage people of diverse backgrounds to work on common challenges, share their opinions, and bring creative solutions to issues. Diversity is today perceived as a real asset and a constant enrichment. Surprisingly, the most obvious diversity, gender diversity, struggles to progress in many companies and it has become a focus of catch up in numerous places.

Gender balance has become a leading topic in people strategies of private and public enterprises, sometimes for very practical reasons. In the war for talent, companies can simply not afford to deprive themselves of half of the population. Women represent fifty percent of graduates in the major countries of the world. Neglecting women in recruitment or promotion is neglecting half of the world’s brain power.

Beyond this very basic motivation, I believe gender diversity is a tremendous asset and a powerful differentiator for companies.

• First of all, it’s a question of business and growth. Many customers and deciders are women, and people of their gender can understand far better their needs and purchasing criteria. No woman in your organization potentially means no sales to this powerful segment of the economy. This simple consideration can motivate changes in people selection

• Gender balance is, like any diversity, an accelerator for innovation. The best way to think out of the box is to encourage a range of ideas. The difference women bring in the workplace is critical and adds tremendous value to the business.

• Finally, gender balance is essential for stability and harmony in a company. Dual-gender teams work better and with a more balanced sensitivity to issues. Women leaders often bring to the table a more mature approach to their career ambition and create a different emotional bond with their teams and peers.

A gender balanced organization aims at leveraging the complementary characteristics of men and women. We need both, expressing their full personality and differences for the good of our companies! Men and women must learn to work better together. Men, who are the dominating gender in the vast majority of our companies today, should be more aware that managing a woman requires a different approach than managing a man. And women should not try to mimic men. Instead, they should cultivate their difference as an asset. The more managers are open to gender differences, the more inclusive our business will be.

In the end, the question is not if we should foster gender balance, but more so how it can be done.

In her first book, Avivah had explained why women had become strategically important for companies, growing more powerful in the economy, in politics and gaining in social influence. Avivah’s second book represents a logical step on how to tackle the gender issue, not positioning it as a women challenge but as a business one.

Balancing genders seems so obvious, it should not need a book. The reality is that changing mentalities is always the most complicated thing in society. Every revolution needs a lot of change management. This is what this book is all about