Happy Darwinian 2009 - Building Gender Balanced Business

January 11th, 2009

All our best wishes for 2009. Appropriately enough, for a website like ours launching at the start of this year, it is the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s publication of Origin of the Species. A good reminder in these turbulent times that human life can be boiled down to a couple of basic essentials: survival and reproduction, as The Economist reminds us in its Christmas Issue.

Many companies and managers will be focusing on the first in 2009. We’d suggest that history will remember those who keep their sights firmly focused on the second. There are already two reactions apparent in reaction to the crisis.

One is to hunker down, tighten all the screws, and reduce the team to the core individuals who have delivered past successes – then wait to see what happens before moving. The other is to use this opportunity to make massive, profound or innovative changes, adaptations and investments to ready for a new century, new rules and new realities.

So what’s all that got to do with WOMEN-omics? This website will demonstrate throughout this year that women are a crucial, untapped lever of innovation and growth for this century – in countries and companies around the globe. And that introducing a better gender balance in business – especially in leadership – will yield better and more sustainable solutions to the challenges sweeping the planet.

We will aim to reframe old questions and tired debates. Let’s admit, with Darwin, that low levels of women in senior management can be explained by the evolutionary reality that women won’t fight as hard as men for power. Then let’s revert to the 21st century and suggest that enlightened companies know that the majority of educated talent and the majority of consumers in the world are female. We’ll suggest rational, bottom-line and customer-focused business reasons to right the gender balance in business.

Smart CEOs who ‘get it’, featured in this website, have become ‘gender bilingual’. Familiar enough with the differences between genders to become able leaders and promoters of the complementary skills and talents of both men and women. They know that while women may not fight for power, companies that put them there deliver a better and more sustainable bottom line.

These CEOs are ambitious for more than just survival. Getting more women, they know, will also ensure their economic and reproductive future. You heard it here first…

Happy Darwinian 2009!