An alternative view of gender diversity

An article by Kristin van Ogtrop in a recent edition of Time magazine trod a well-worn path, bemoaning the pervasive absence of women in senior leadership positions of society.

I like van Ogtrop, not least for her wonderful Dutch name. I wonder how she chooses to pronounce it. Many days in New York I am introduced to a person or a place via an Anglicized bastardisation of something originally Dutch. On your first visit to the city, you’ll probably leave Kennedy airport onto the van Wyck expressway. Of course it is pronounced like a sort of lorry followed by the wick of a candle.

Van Ogtrop occasionally writes an end piece for Time under the heading “The Amateur”. Her articles are always homely and funny, usually about the mysteries of bringing up teenage children. That page in Time is more often filled by Joel Stein, who is funny too but in an altogether more masculine way. Too often for me, Time disappoints: it steers too close to the American mainstream and often ignores the existence of a world beyond the fifty states. The culture section often has no interest for me at all. Yet this page at the end frequently acts as a good dessert for me after a stodgy main course.

The longer article about gender diversity acknowledged the perceived wisdom in the field, including Sheryl Sandberg’s advice to “Lean in”. But the main approach van Ogtrop chooses is to talk to individual women to try to learn lessons from their stories.

She digs out some powerful stories, and illustrates them with extensive quotes. The theme is the same. These talented women had every chance of progressing further up the ladder expected of them, yet at a key juncture they chose not to. The women looked at their goals, looked at the implications of making different choices, and gracefully compromised their career or other leadership aspirations.

The outcomes for humanity of these decisions were undoubtedly negative. It is clear from van Ogtrop’s interviews that these women possessed exceptional talent, and would have brought all the benefits of diversity to their respective opportunities.

Having reached this conclusion, van Ogtrop moved onto established ground about why it happened and what could be done about it.

In the first area, men are seen as typically more driven, and in some cultures to face fewer compromises. If it is not expected to do a lot to look after the kids or contribute to housework, then a career can take a higher priority. There is probably some genetic component behind the behaviour, with demonstrating strength and providing resources seen as the role of men, and nurturing family the role of women. There may even be a physical component: from my busiest career years, I recall deep physical exhaustion, which might take an even higher toll typically on women.

The diagnosis of why led to the suggestions for cures. Perhaps women, a la Sandberg, should just fight through the urges to compromise. Certainly society needs to continue to focus on parental expectations with load sharing the norm rather than the exception. And smart companies could do a lot more to make the lives of their senior executives less burdensome: I always found the relentless focus on after-hours networking to be intrusive. Modern technology should give us all a chance to grow our productivity without ruining our personal lives.

All true, and I agree with the societal remedies. But I think van Ogtrop misses the main point. This is story is not about women, it is about men.

The women in van Ogtrop’s interviews had one other thing in common. They had no regrets about the decisions they had made, and they were happy.

These women had managed to keep a balanced view of their lives. They had probably defined goals for multiple aspects of their lives looking forward several years. And they took a realistic view of what climbing the career ladder would mean for other goals, and decided to pull back. Surely this is something to celebrate, not bemoan?

I have mentioned before a favourite tool of mine, a GAPS grid. G for goals is the most important box. The others are A for achievements, P for perceptions and S for standards. P and S are about how others judge us while G and A are about ourselves. After completing each of the four boxes, the idea is to look for gaps (hence GAPS), and define areas to work on to close them. A gap between G and A suggests we are not meeting our own ambitions, so we should focus somewhere or perhaps tone down the goals. A gap between G and P suggests others don’t believe we can achieve our goals and may act to hinder us (for example, by not promoting us). A gap between A and S implies that our own measurement of achievement does not always meet the expectations of our environment – so maybe we should try a different environment. A gap between P and S is a warning sign of failure.

GAPS has always worked for me, and for people I have coached. I spend the most time on the G box, and am always astonished how this is new territory for most people. Many simply see their goals as the targets imposed by others in staff reports, a sure way to losing control and direction. Even more choose to limit their goals to the work sphere.

Both of these failings are more common in men than in women, indeed I would claim they are almost universal in men. Seeing goals as targets set by others creates focus and alignment, so perhaps it is not surprising that more women seem to complain about their targets than men, since they are the ones ready to have their own opinion. Such behaviour may drive short-term discontent, but will pay off in the longer term.

Restricting goals to work is another deceptive simplification. But the consequence is probably a lack of fulfilment in the long run. Like most men, I slavishly followed the ambitious path until I was forty, when my train hit the buffers almost overnight via a breakdown. From then my work life was less successful by conventional measures (I never secured another promotion) but was more fulfilling and perhaps even added more value to my company as well as to me (for example via the internal Shell blog). Even after the breakdown, I still was in denial about most goals from my private life, until circumstances forced me to address these urgently nine years later.

I count myself among the lucky ones. I reached the right answers in the end, while many slave away in denial until the end of their working lives and can only regret the sacrifices to their relationships and health when it is all too late.

The women van Ogtrop writes about have faced up to their goals with realism, and made courageous decisions. This is behaviour we need to promote, not question. And the ones who need the coaching are predominantly men. Perhaps one key reason we still have mainly men in most so-called leadership roles is that generally men are the only ones daft enough to put up with them.

The world needs a better gender balance in leadership for sure, and perhaps over time structural steps can be taken to enable leadership to be practical with less compromise to other goals. But in the meantime, women can try to be like men or “lean in” or whatever they choose, but is that really wise advice? The happy examples of Kristin van Ogtrop, combined with the obvious misery of most leaders, argues otherwise. In writing a story about women, van Ogtrop has really offered valuable coaching to men.