Women at Work

This week I helped facilitate an event for the Shell Professional Women’s Network. I did bits of pieces for this network while working, and collected plenty of insights and blog readers as a result. So I was happy to do this as a favour for a friend, especially since I knew it would be fun.

It also gave me a chance to develop and trial a workshop idea that I’ve been mulling over for a while, on the subject of Managing your Boss. I always noted that any blogs on this subject were very popular and brought out lots of passion and a cry for help from many people. Indeed, it seems almost the majority of employees have serious problems with their relationship with their boss. The workshop seemed to go very well for a first outing. Anyone want to be the customer for the next ones?

It is rare for me (and I imagine for most people) to be one man in the company of fifty of so women. There was a second guy, a senior manager who pitched up for part of the day and gave an excellent interview, but for some of the time I was in a gender minority of one. In former times, that used to be the lot of women themselves in business, always a tiny minority, though the balance has improved in many areas in the last ten years ore so.

I didn’t have any feelings of being intimidated or ignored or tokenised. My role on the day made that unlikely anyway, together with the fact that I volunteered and knew what was coming. One thing I was able to do was to observe how women operate when among just other women. That yielded some insights.

First was the focus on physical appearance. Even though it was a casual occasion, everyone had made some effort, and there was a sense that what was worn got noticed, and commented on as well. One presenter included the advice to get a style consultant among her ten top tips. Lo, and behold, when it came to question and answer, the first two questions from the floor were about style consultants. I even received some feedback myself about my appearance, something I hardly recall happening before.

(It is fair. I am a mess. Metrosexuality came in long after I joined the workforce. I couldn’t be bothered and am also too mean to buy many clothes. I’m sure this has held me back, yet it never meant enough to me to do anything about it, and of course I hardly ever received any feedback to spur me on)

This focus on appearance I had previously thought a bit of a cliché, but it was clearly there. I wonder why women don’t bring the subject up in mixed company? It seems valuable, but doesn’t happen. This could be one of the areas where women have hidden their true personalities in the desire to confirm (thereby robbing the company of diversity). In an all female gathering, this latent desire comes out in spades. I was told that if I had not been there it would have been even more prevalent, perhaps unhealthily so.

So it’s down the shops for me then.

The next thing I noticed was openness in the conversation. Fewer people seemed to be showing off than usual, and there seemed to be less political correctness and more readiness to be personal and a bit vulnerable. This was wholly positive. Again, do the women do this when in mixed company? If they do, do we drown them out? And if they don’t, are they once again subordinating their character? Probably it is a combination of both.

Finally, I picked up an obsession with networking as a required skill. The day had a networking theme, but I sensed that the women would have focused there anyway. I found it rather forced and even misguided. We all network all the time, it is just part of our everyday behaviour. Actually, I sense women do more natural networking than men. True, to succeed, sometimes you have to put in a bit more effort than usual, provide a bit of focus to your networking. But the consensus among the women seemed to be that networking was a major activity, and mainly took place outside working hours. Of course, this then ran into the work life debate. I don’t really accept this as regards networking is concerned. The great majority can happen within working hours without sacrificing very much. Sometimes nowadays I’m a bit jealous of the smokers – they network among themselves very effectively.

Overall, the day had a positive feel and left me with a positive impression. In the past, women were encouraged to behave like men, thereby throwing away their main advantage, both for them and their companies. Occasionally as a tactic it can make sense to comply a little with male expectations, but please, not as a strategy or guiding principle. I sense that women are finally numerous enough and confident enough to be themselves, at least in office based situations in big, Western, companies. Hooray for that.