Laurent Blanchard, Cisco (France) - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Laurent Blanchard, head of Cisco in France sees a direct link between gender diversity and business performance
• Women leaders have skills that are especially suited to leading businesses in the difficult economic conditions of today, says Blanchard
• The first step to improving the gender balance at Cisco France is to analyse why some women don’t aspire to senior roles and improve the attractiveness of the company to women candidates
• Gender diversity is one of Blanchard’s top five management priorities and all of his managers will be held accountable for their role in improving the gender balance

“It’s extremely important – actually it is fundamental – that we have diversity within our management teams so that we can handle the new business environment. If we don’t do it and we are less able to take decisions in a collaborative manner and if we keep our very hierarchical approach in terms of decision-making we will fail. That is why gender diversity is one of my top five management priorities.”

What was the result of the workshop?
LB: We spent an afternoon really talking through the issues and we asked ourselves: Why would we need more women in management? Currently, in Cisco (France), 20% of the top management team are women and 20% of all of our managers are women. Why then should we try to increase the number? And then we went through many studies that have been done and one in particular by McKinsey & Company had a big impact on my thinking. (This was from McKinsey’s research called: “Women Matter”).

The research identified nine personality traits that made for effective leadership which could be linked to improved business performance. And three or four of these characteristics were all areas where women typically are very strong such as collaborative decision-making capabilities, good reward and recognition approaches and leading by example. The most compelling point for me was that such skills were going to be even more critical in steering our business through the tougher business environment that we are all entering. I could see that these leadership traits – more likely to be associated with women – would become even more important to our business in the future.

How are you going to radically change the gender balance?
LB: First of all we created an action plan. We went back and analysed the reason why only 20% of our top managers and all managers are women. The answer was that the issue had not been as important as it should have been for the top managers. Secondly, we needed to analyse the attractiveness of Cisco as a potential employer to young women. Were we attracting enough women as candidates?

What can you do to make Cisco more appealing to women as an employer?
LB: I believe we can make it more appealing by putting more stress on the human element of our work, connected to our company-wide campaign around the ‘Human Network’. As a company, we position ourselves as enabling people to work in the Human Network.

How can the ‘Human Network’ make Cisco more appealing to women?
LB: We hope that by stressing the fact that the underlying technology we provide will connect people together better and make them more effective and potentially happier, young women will be attracted to that very personal and human factor. Young women are often not attracted to technology firms like ours – they might prefer companies such as L’Oreal. However, if we can get the human aspect across it might change their perception. We can also stress that we are doing a lot to improve the environment and that by 2012 we plan to have reduced our company’s carbon footprint by 25%. Thirdly, we’d want to show women that they can have an exciting career path at Cisco.

“The research identified nine personality traits that made for effective leadership which could be linked to improved business performance. And three or four of these characteristics were all areas where women typically are very strong such as collaborative decision-making capabilities, good reward and recognition approaches and leading by example.”

What about the women within the company already – how will you encourage them to aspire to the top?
LB: We also plan to carry out in-depth talent management reviews of all the women within our organisation. We need to ask each individual woman why she has not aspired to evolve to a senior management position. Is it because of her personal situation, perhaps connected to the desire to raise a family? From this we would be able to analyse and then take the appropriate action to improve things.

Q: Do you provide work flexibility right now?
LB: We do enable employees to work from home. So there are women in my Group who work from home on [some of the time]. I know that some of them are not working between 1.00pm and 5.00pm on a given day when they focus on their children. I don’t care because I know they will do the job anyway. Still, we need to promote and understand better what works for women and act on this.

Will technology make it easier for women to manage work and life?
LB: I believe we will move into a mode where the location will not be relevant anymore. But the ability to communicate and connect any time – with respect for individual privacy uppermost – this will become far more important. People will want to work more in a collaborative way, in teams and less on their own. It doesn’t mean we have to be physically together. It will change the way we work. And all those technologies enabling you to work any time and any place will help women with family commitments. It will enable them to have a far better work life balance.

When will you reach the end of your journey?
LB: Initially, this is a journey of three to four years. We will lead by example and try to get far more women as managers, but it takes time. By the same token we aim to hire more young women and have them develop in the organisation. We will review our progress every month and adjust our action if necessary and every year we will examine things and redefine the priorities.

Will managers be held to account on this issue?
LB: First, I want them to go through the same process I did from seeing this as “nice to have” to recognising its strategic importance. Then absolutely, they will be accountable.

Do you think some people will oppose the idea?
Yes, of course. The world is diverse and there will be people who believe there is no specific need to change the gender balance because we have not done it so far but the vast majority will understand.

Do women usually react positively?
LB: Not always because they may not like the idea of being treated differently than the others. It is very important for the male managers to understand how to manage women – to understand their desire not to be treated differently.

Have you set quotas or targets?
LB: It’s really too early in the process to do this. But what I would say is the issue is among the top five of my priorities.