Women in the debate - Building Gender Balanced Business

I have had the pleasure today of interviewing two leading businessmen, both working in the engineering and heavy industry sector, and who both regard gender balance as a business imperative. One of the directors knows from experience that having more women in a leadership team leads to a better conversation, greater insights and ultimately better decisions.

There are many discussions today about how we can pull out of the current economic mess and build for the future. It would seem obvious that women’s voices need to be heard. (For more on the importance of including women in the creation of a new and better world see Avivah’s Blog). We all know they were not the dominant players in the financial markets in recent years. I would not suggest that women are perfect and that they would automatically make better decisions. But I do believe that having women decision-makers in significant numbers would have led to a different and more positive outcome in the financial markets and ultimately the real economy.

But putting that debate aside, any group discussion today that pulls leaders and experts together to discuss the way forward should include significant numbers of women. The recent discussions at Davos did not do this, as we have reported elsewhere. Today, I received a newsletter from the London Business School, in which it listed some of its potential speakers for its highly important annual Global Leadership Summit. And guess what…there is only one woman, Professor Lynda Gratton.

There are six very important men listed as guest speakers and Professor Gratton is the lone woman alongside seven other male faculty speakers. I am sure that won’t pose a problem for Professor Gratton. But can we expect discussions such as these to generate fresh ideas and perspectives with a line-up of speakers almost equal to 100% men? There may be other speakers to be announced and I hope that they are not more men. I would not suggest that the speakers won’t contribute brilliantly to the debate. But as every diversity statement claims these days, diverse teams lead to better discussions…

If you do want to hear what women have to say about the post-crisis world, I’d recommend another annual meeting organised by the very same London Business School, The 9th Annual Women in Business Conference. The theme is “Beyond Ideas: Making Global Impact” and includes three panel discussions: Global Economy: Women’s Perspective, Charting Your Couse: Career Navigation, and Energising Entrepreneurship: Women’s Ingenuity. This takes place on March 6, three months before the annual global leadership summit. To get the rounded gender view, I’d recommend you attend both.