Why We Need Trust - Building Gender Balanced Business

They say bankers are trusted less today than politicians and journalists. A lack of trust is corrosive. Without it society is likely to be more fragmented, full of individuals who believe they are better off on their own. I have come to the view that trust is also the elephant in the room in terms of gender in the workplace.

Trust in the meritocratic argument is declining
During the recent boom years, women were persuaded to trust the male directors who said that the meritocratic system would push through women to the top of companies in significant numbers soon enough (yet some twenty or thirty years on the pace of change has been glacial). They opposed quotas for women on the board because, it was argued, companies would be forced to find women candidates even if they were unsuitable. This would be bad for business and likely, so the women were told, to lead to a backlash against them. Men would feel resentful at seeing their chances passed over by women less qualified. It would be counter-productive. This argument is still used against the idea of having a quota. That is understandable but time is, perhaps, running out.

In a BBC Radio Four interview last October, Peninah Thomson, a partner at the executive coaching firm Praesta Partners, said that if things did not improve in a couple of years (ie., October 2010), she would support the idea of a quota. Thomson has worked tirelessly with the top Chairmen and Chief Executives of the UK’s FTSE100 companies to create the Cross-Company Mentoring Scheme, which provides CEO or Chairman-level mentors for high-potential women working for a FTSE100 company. The idea is that if companies have the will to promote women and support their rise to the top, coupled with women’s understanding of how to play the game, the situation will improve. However, the trust in this regard is fragile. It will depend on how fast positive change is made. And today, many women believe that the momentum for change in the gender issue has dangerously slowed down in the face of the more immediate demands of surviving the downturn.

Men largely to blame for the crash
In the post-crisis scene, it is generally accepted that men, in the main, caused the financial mess that the world is still reeling from. This is, of course, another blow to the building of trust between men and women in business. Men could win back some trust, though, by accepting the logic of the argument. Gender balanced teams are more effective, and are less likely to lead companies in a herd-like rush to disaster as happened in the banking sector. Therefore, one of the absolute priorities of the moment should be to ensure that there really are significant numbers of women at the top of our major companies. Instead, most of the discussion is about regulation, fiscal stimuli (interesting in this regard that a woman, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is resisting the UK’s call for European countries to spend their way out of the recession), and the problem of persistent greed as displayed by AIG and others in their bonus packages and so on. These are all obviously critical issues to stave off the onward rush to a Great Depression and allay social tensions, but gender balance should be a key issue too.

Gender BALANCE must remain the goal
There are plenty of articles on men having caused the mess – but this is leading to a dead-end. Lehman Sisters might have been more likely to survive than Lehman Brothers but we don’t want companies to be run by women only any more than we want them run by men solely. The answer is to have a balance and for this we need each side to trust the other. In the UK, the women’s lobbying organisation, the Fawcett Society is calling for a quota for a higher percentage of women on the board to ensure better governance in corporations, showing that trust in the current system is running out for some in the UK at least. Responding to the growing urgency in promoting women to the tops of boards, Elin Hurvene’s Professional Boards Forum, which helped businesses find excellent women candidates in Norway following its quota legislation, has set-up in the UK. It is holding its first event in London on May 5 and has already got ten Chairmen of top companies such as Vodafone and Cadbury attending. The Spanish Government also recently issued new equality legislation, which called on businesses to aim for a 40% representation of women on their boards. But the Norway case showed that it had to be imposed to happen quickly rather than in one hundred years or so. In Spain, progress is predictably slow.

Time to innovate
In the midst of the current economic climate, there is a chance to make a break with the past and establish radical new models in business and the aim of gender balance should be uppermost. In Avivah Wittenbeg-Cox’s blog this week, she reveals that Asia has the capability to leap-frog the rest of the world in gender. Businesses there recognise the vital importance of women as consumers, leaders and talent. They can also learn from some of the mistakes made in the West and move faster towards the goal of gender balance. It is the competitive issue of our times. But, as women become even more of a majority of the talent base worldwide (pouring out of our universities in ever higher proportion to the men), the logic of having to draw more talent from this pool will become overwhelming. Some men may still try to stop it happening. Perhaps, they will recruit leaders on criteria other than education (cynical or realistic?) to favour the men. But, as Avivah says, the world is waking up to the importance of women. If it is their century, as she believes, then they need to include men in the new world. They need the balance of skills – men’s risk-taking, individualistic, status-driven mentality will have its place and be needed still. You certainly won’t want to exclude them from power, leaving them to resort to their considerable capacity to create chaos and mayhem to reclaim it. So, trust will be key. Let’s hope it can be strengthened and maintained.