The first thing I want to say is that it is important. I remember looking at a Press feature on the recovery before I was Mayor and there was not one woman who had been invited to contribute to the article. Not one woman was in a leadership position – the Minister, the Mayor, the relevant Chief Executives – despite the many women leaders in the community
And yet it was acceptable that not one woman’s perspective was presented in terms of the most significant event in our history as a city. An irony that is not lost on those of us who proudly proclaim Kate Sheppard’s drive and determination that won universal suffrage for New Zealand women before any other country.
So why does it matter – this gender diversity report?
Diversity is the key word.
In this post disaster environment I have been introduced to the concept of complexity.
To tackle complex problems we require many points of view; many perspectives. This is so that we obtain diversity of thought. The opposite would be “group think”.
It is universally acknowledged that the more diverse the range of skills, knowledge and experience that are brought to bear on a complex issue, the greater the potential to make higher quality decisions.
And the greater the diversity in leadership, the more a company or a council can build its reputation as a responsible corporate citizen that both understands and is responsive to its community.
There is no more complex an environment than a post-disaster recovery. The shift from a government department to Regenerate Christchurch with a board jointly appointed by the government and the Council is an opportunity to get that decision-making framework right.
It will be important to have diversity in mind in the appointment of the board and in turn the management of the organisation.
The shift from recovery to regeneration gives us the opportunity to think outside the square, and to think more about the range of communities that make up our city rather than focusing on anchor projects. Despite their capacity to catalyse development, cities are organic in nature, and the disruption of the earthquakes ought not to mean we lose sight of what makes a city tick. Diversity is something that makes a city tick.
When I hear the results of the Hays Gender Diversity Report, I cannot say I am surprised. I spent two years as Minister of Women’s Affairs and I could not agree more with their assessment of what needs to be done:
- Driving culture change from the top;
- Proactive sourcing and capability-building to move women into more senior roles;
- Training staff to identify unconscious bias and stereotyping in all their practices; and
- Designing jobs that women will aspire to with flexibility offerings for all.
I emphasise the last one because, although flexibility is framed as attractive to women, it’s actually attractive to people. It says that we are valued and trusted. The advantage though is that it means women will aspire to those roles, because they can see themselves performing them due to a significant barrier being removed. Inflexibility in the employment market is the single biggest driver to part time self-employment for women.
In 2006-2007 I was New Zealand’s Minister of Commerce; Minister for Small Business; and Minister of Women’s Affairs. It was a great combination.
At that time, despite having a woman Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of the House and the CEO of the top NZX listed company, women made up only 7 percent of directors of the Top 100 companies on the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX).
I, of course, do not make the case for tokenism, which is why I don’t support quotas – I make a business case for diversity, because it’s good for business.
Although an absolute correlation is difficult to prove, the high association found in a number of studies cannot be ignored; and that is that companies with more women on their boards and in their management teams tend to perform better.
And it makes sense – if everyone sitting around the boardroom table has the same background, then they are not going to see the full range of risks and opportunities for their company. Group think is extremely limiting.
Ongoing studies by Catalyst of the performance of Fortune 500 companies found that the group of companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams experienced better financial performance than the group of companies with the lowest women’s representation: return on equity and total return to shareholders was more than a third higher.
Many other studies consistently confirm that the firms with the best records of promoting women are more profitable.
So why do we still see women so under-represented? In my view it is the subtle unconscious bias that the Hays’ report highlights.
But there’s another factor that links with that. I don't think that men sit behind closed boardroom doors plotting to keep women out. Shoulder tapping is how we bring people together to undertake any task. Private sector board appointments are no different. A significant number of New Zealand boards have no women on them at all. So if such a board is discussing who is going to replace Henry when he retires, the board members are going to suggest the other people they have worked with or served on boards with and that is going to lead them to consider other men.
So the real challenge is not that the women are not there, they are; it’s just that they are not on the radar of the people making the appointments. And that is the challenge we still need to address.
I should say that there is an apparent exception to the rule about equally qualified candidates for a leadership position – one a man and one a woman – seeing the man appointed. And that is if the opening was described as difficult and involving a high risk of failure. The explanation put forward in the particular study was that respondents believed that women possessed particular abilities that were especially valuable in times of crisis. Well I don’t know why that didn’t help us having women in leadership positions here in Christchurch.
This phenomenon became known as the ‘glass cliff’, (as opposed to the glass ceiling), because of the relative precariousness of these positions, since they were much more likely to involve the management of organisational units in crisis.
But I think that would suggest the real reason that women were being appointed over men in these situations was that they were considered to have much less to lose than their male counterparts.
Again the unconscious bias comes to the fore.
So can the Hays report help us here in Christchurch to help resolve this issue? I believe we can.
International experience tells us that diversity is a critical component of good decision-making when confronted with complex issues. That’s us in spades.
When I left Parliament, my former staff gave me a necklace. It reads: “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud”. It is a quote from Coco Chanel.
That quote is really about how important it is to speak out for what you believe in. Sometimes that requires courage, especially when it is not a popular view.
The three smaller beads say community, resilience and leadership. The reason the people who worked closest to me after the earthquakes chose these words for my necklace was because they knew that I didn’t truly appreciate their meaning until after the earthquakes.
A community is not the co-location of houses – that’s a suburb. It’s the relationship between people in those houses and their connection with decision-makers, be that central or local government. The social capital within communities is not measured by socio-economic status; it is measured by the strength of those relationships.
Resilience is not strong in the face of adversity – that’s stoicism. Resilience is about the capacity to plan and prepare for adversity, the ability to absorb the impact and recover quickly when something goes wrong, but more importantly it’s about the ability as a community to adapt to a new environment or even co-create a new kind or normal.
Leadership is not a position you hold – it’s a mark of character.
There are plenty of people who hold leadership positions who are not leaders in the true sense of the word. And sometimes people who do not hold leadership positions are true leaders in every sense of the word.
I remember going to a forum a few years ago where young people were asked to describe leadership and the usual words were offered: strong, decisive, authoritative, inspiring, responsible. Any textbook would associate those words with what it takes to be a leader. But this is what is described as a heroic model of leadership – someone who comes in and takes charge – such leaders issue orders and are obeyed.
In the emergency response period following a disaster, people often look for this form of leadership – it's the command and control model and it can be comforting, someone else taking charge, knowing what to do.
But there is another way to define leadership and this definition ties in with my experience once the crisis is over and we begin the process of recovery. The words this time are respectful, engaging, empathetic, inclusive and intuitive.
Why do I think of women when I hear those words and yet we don't necessarily think of women when we look for a leader? Have we had the image of the heroic leader drummed into us to the extent that we don't see that these qualities for what they are?
It’s the unconscious bias again.
I believe we are indebted to Hays for alerting us to these issues.
Christchurch could look to its history – to Kate Sheppard and the women she inspired to sign a petition that began the change in the world we now take for granted. We could lead the way again. And this report tells us where to start. And it matters. We shouldn’t be afraid of standing up and saying so. Companies are more profitable, communities are more engaged, wider perspectives are brought to the table and better decisions are made – who could argue with that?
What a wonderful legacy we could leave for the daughters of the 21st century.
The first thing I want to say is that it is important. I remember looking at a Press feature on the recovery before I was Mayor and there was not one woman who had been invited to contribute to the article. Not one woman was in a leadership position – the Minister, the Mayor, the relevant Chief Executives – despite the many women leaders in the community.
There may be those who think that doesn’t matter but it does. In today’s world we would be horrified to think of a council without a single woman having being elected and we would feel the same way about Parliament.
And yet it was acceptable that not one woman’s perspective was presented in terms of the most significant event in our history as a city. An irony that is not lost on those of us who proudly proclaim Kate Sheppard’s drive and determination that won universal suffrage for New Zealand women before any other country.
So why does it matter – this gender diversity report?
Diversity is the key word.
In this post disaster environment I have been introduced to the concept of complexity.
To tackle complex problems we require many points of view; many perspectives. This is so that we obtain diversity of thought. The opposite would be “group think”.
It is universally acknowledged that the more diverse the range of skills, knowledge and experience that are brought to bear on a complex issue, the greater the potential to make higher quality decisions.
And the greater the diversity in leadership, the more a company or a council can build its reputation as a responsible corporate citizen that both understands and is responsive to its community.
There is no more complex an environment than a post-disaster recovery. The shift from a government department to Regenerate Christchurch with a board jointly appointed by the government and the Council is an opportunity to get that decision-making framework right.
It will be important to have diversity in mind in the appointment of the board and in turn the management of the organisation.
The shift from recovery to regeneration gives us the opportunity to think outside the square, and to think more about the range of communities that make up our city rather than focusing on anchor projects. Despite their capacity to catalyse development, cities are organic in nature, and the disruption of the earthquakes ought not to mean we lose sight of what makes a city tick. Diversity is something that makes a city tick.
When I hear the results of the Hays Gender Diversity Report, I cannot say I am surprised. I spent two years as Minister of Women’s Affairs and I could not agree more with their assessment of what needs to be done:
· Driving culture change from the top;
· Proactive sourcing and capability-building to move women into more senior roles;
· Training staff to identify unconscious bias and stereotyping in all their practices; and
· Designing jobs that women will aspire to with flexibility offerings for all.
I emphasise the last one because, although flexibility is framed as attractive to women, it’s actually attractive to people. It says that we are valued and trusted. The advantage though is that it means women will aspire to those roles, because they can see themselves performing them due to a significant barrier being removed. Inflexibility in the employment market is the single biggest driver to part time self-employment for women.
In 2006-2007 I was New Zealand’s Minister of Commerce; Minister for Small Business; and Minister of Women’s Affairs. It was a great combination.
At that time, despite having a woman Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of the House and the CEO of the top NZX listed company, women made up only 7 percent of directors of the Top 100 companies on the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX).
I, of course, do not make the case for tokenism, which is why I don’t support quotas – I make a business case for diversity, because it’s good for business.
Although an absolute correlation is difficult to prove, the high association found in a number of studies cannot be ignored; and that is that companies with more women on their boards and in their management teams tend to perform better.
And it makes sense – if everyone sitting around the boardroom table has the same background, then they are not going to see the full range of risks and opportunities for their company. Group think is extremely limiting.
Ongoing studies by Catalyst of the performance of Fortune 500 companies found that the group of companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams experienced better financial performance than the group of companies with the lowest women’s representation: return on equity and total return to shareholders was more than a third higher.
Many other studies consistently confirm that the firms with the best records of promoting women are more profitable.
So why do we still see women so under-represented? In my view it is the subtle unconscious bias that the Hays’ report highlights.
But there’s another factor that links with that. I don't think that men sit behind closed boardroom doors plotting to keep women out. Shoulder tapping is how we bring people together to undertake any task. Private sector board appointments are no different. A significant number of New Zealand boards have no women on them at all. So if such a board is discussing who is going to replace Henry when he retires, the board members are going to suggest the other people they have worked with or served on boards with and that is going to lead them to consider other men.
So the real challenge is not that the women are not there, they are; it’s just that they are not on the radar of the people making the appointments. And that is the challenge we still need to address.
I should say that there is an apparent exception to the rule about equally qualified candidates for a leadership position – one a man and one a woman – seeing the man appointed. And that is if the opening was described as difficult and involving a high risk of failure. The explanation put forward in the particular study was that respondents believed that women possessed particular abilities that were especially valuable in times of crisis. Well I don’t know why that didn’t help us having women in leadership positions here in Christchurch.
This phenomenon became known as the ‘glass cliff’, (as opposed to the glass ceiling), because of the relative precariousness of these positions, since they were much more likely to involve the management of organisational units in crisis.
But I think that would suggest the real reason that women were being appointed over men in these situations was that they were considered to have much less to lose than their male counterparts.
Again the unconscious bias comes to the fore.
So can the Hays report help us here in Christchurch to help resolve this issue? I believe we can.
International experience tells us that diversity is a critical component of good decision-making when confronted with complex issues. That’s us in spades.
When I left Parliament, my former staff gave me a necklace. It reads: “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud”. It is a quote from Coco Chanel.
That quote is really about how important it is to speak out for what you believe in. Sometimes that requires courage, especially when it is not a popular view.
The three smaller beads say community, resilience and leadership. The reason the people who worked closest to me after the earthquakes chose these words for my necklace was because they knew that I didn’t truly appreciate their meaning until after the earthquakes.
A community is not the co-location of houses – that’s a suburb. It’s the relationship between people in those houses and their connection with decision-makers, be that central or local government. The social capital within communities is not measured by socio-economic status; it is measured by the strength of those relationships.
Resilience is not strong in the face of adversity – that’s stoicism. Resilience is about the capacity to plan and prepare for adversity, the ability to absorb the impact and recover quickly when something goes wrong, but more importantly it’s about the ability as a community to adapt to a new environment or even co-create a new kind or normal.
Leadership is not a position you hold – it’s a mark of character.
There are plenty of people who hold leadership positions who are not leaders in the true sense of the word. And sometimes people who do not hold leadership positions are true leaders in every sense of the word.
I remember going to a forum a few years ago where young people were asked to describe leadership and the usual words were offered: strong, decisive, authoritative, inspiring, responsible. Any textbook would associate those words with what it takes to be a leader. But this is what is described as a heroic model of leadership – someone who comes in and takes charge – such leaders issue orders and are obeyed.
In the emergency response period following a disaster, people often look for this form of leadership – it's the command and control model and it can be comforting, someone else taking charge, knowing what to do.
But there is another way to define leadership and this definition ties in with my experience once the crisis is over and we begin the process of recovery. The words this time are respectful, engaging, empathetic, inclusive and intuitive.
Why do I think of women when I hear those words and yet we don't necessarily think of women when we look for a leader? Have we had the image of the heroic leader drummed into us to the extent that we don't see that these qualities for what they are?
It’s the unconscious bias again.
I believe we are indebted to Hays for alerting us to these issues.
Christchurch could look to its history – to Kate Sheppard and the women she inspired to sign a petition that began the change in the world we now take for granted. We could lead the way again. And this report tells us where to start. And it matters. We shouldn’t be afraid of standing up and saying so. Companies are more profitable, communities are more engaged, wider perspectives are brought to the table and better decisions are made – who could argue with that?
What a wonderful legacy we could leave for the daughters of the 21st century.