Well there's quite a few studies that we can cite & people often do except often the studies chosen can be chosen upon the conclusions & not the methodology. Its a tricky path.
But does a board do better with a female influence and if some is good, is more better.
Yes.
And No.
In the case of a board, directors are confined to act within boundaries, these boundaries are oblivious to a person's gender. A board is skill based or should be. You'd hope you can have at the higher levels, higher levels of required skills in certain fields. Legal, financial, strategic are just some of the angles directors have to confront...in the best interests of the shareholders otherwise known as their "Fiduciary Duty".
The emphasis is deliberate yet shouldn't be required but...it is.
The perpetuity of the company and the best interests of the shareholders or members is key but sometimes forgotten. This aspect is in the Corporations Act.
All very no gender centric.
But do women & men think differently and if so how much is nature & how much is nurture?
Yes and we don't know definitively. We know the effect of nature is not zero, the effect of nurture or culture or upbringing or any other social influence is not zero. We know not all men think exactly the same, we know all women don't think exactly the same and we know corporate psychopaths can be male or female. We know altruistic people can be male or female and we know embezzlers can be of either gender too.
So are there advantages of having women on boards? Yes, most likely. Having a genuine spread of individuals with life skills, board skills is paramount though and if you don't have women (or men) on your board right now don't stress unless you think it's "just a bad look", If your board is operating well, if your business is operating well, if you're meeting your targets, your compliance requirements and you're enjoying growth, get on with things.
It is possible to have a successful board that is all male, all female or a slanted or even dead equal mix. It is a historical fact, that most company directors in the last 50 years have predominantly been men & its a current fact that this is changing. Nowadays women are applying for jobs they may not have historically done in large numbers once. This is not a bad thing.
What is a bad thing is if a board should think it needs a "coupla gals on board" to meet a pub test. What is a bad thing is if a board, or a company at its AGM should think that 50:50 gender balance on the board is a desirable outcome.
What should be the aim is the perpetuity of the organisation & the benefit and best interests of the shareholders...the owners. The Corporations Act does not view things as a Gender playing field and I don't think responsible boards or shareholders should either. If they find a good director, with a good business background, a good board history and in possession of particular skills in an area the board is possibly deficient in that are identified as required...consider grabbing that director irrespective of their gender.
Fact is less women apply for board positions today, yes more now than ever before but it is predominantly a male domain. There's a number of reasons for this, a number of non discriminatory reasons and a number of biased reasons why. Know the difference, then fix the fault. There are less women studying their MBA yet more women studying that than probably ever before. As a result I'd expect to see less female CEOs & less female CFOs...and less of them going onto to a life away from management & a career in boards. That is just one variable and its not sexist, its part of the entire equation.
Are women equal to men? Under law yes. In fact 2 people with the same skills, with the same experience in the same job must be paid the same. irrespective of their race, religion, gender anything else. But some get paid more because they've been in the job longer, some work longer, some get extra skills & advance their positions. But it is illegal to benefit someone or penalise someone purely on the basis of their gender.
Women probably do in a very general sense think differently than men, they may be wired differently than men but I don't think its an earth shattering day night differences, its possibly far more nuanced and it's largely rendered immaterial under the Corporations Act.
So seek out good directors and ignore their gender. It will be, by & large, irrelevant. Treat men & women equally by ignoring their gender & focusing on the skills, knowledge and experience they have, what deficiencies you board is trying to fix and press on.
It is odd we now have a point where if a person identifies as something they are that something. A sort of bizarre subjective truth. A man identifying as a women is accepted by many as being a woman. The change appears to be a mix of surgery, prescription chemicals and mind set. That used to be man is now a woman. So does that "new" woman think like a woman now?
Do the genders actually have differences we should celebrate or is it just mind set & surgery that separates men & women? Can't really have it both ways.
I think there are areas where gender is irrelevant and certain workplaces like the board room is clearly one of them. Other workplaces still need segregation. The extreme example, elite level rugby league or AFL. Or weight lifting or other Olympic competitions.
I believe there will always be more men in the field of interstate trucking, brick laying, plumbing and general labouring jobs. There will always be more women in nursing and teaching. These things are not negatives, they are "just are".
I do think it odd that we must have gender balance in boards & the parliaments, 50:50 as soon as possible but while this aim is applied to high paying, high profile white collar jobs the same gender balance is not applied to bricklaying. Will you new house have better walls if 50% of the bricklayers during construction were male and 50% were female? At some point we will have to ignore the gender balance & just get on with the job and focus solely on the equal opportunity being presented and then the performance being the telling judgement point.
When I get on board a jet plane I don't care if the pilot is male or female, I just care & trust they can take off, fly & land without incident. Their gender will play no role in their ability and if it does, then that's not a gender issue, its a performance issue.
I worry that good well meaning people will over look a vital point. By having a quota or worse still and inferred need to get people into a job due to their gender they overlook the fact that someone is missing out on a job due to their gender.
MBAs are a respected degree, but a MBA really only gets you your first job. Its the performance of your first job that will get you your second job. Your MBA is a required milestone, its not a guarantee of a long successful career. You need an MBA to have the OPPORTUNITY to apply & hopefully get a job, it should never be a seen as a God given right to a guaranteed outcome.
Life does not have equal outcomes, but we should all have equal opportunities.
In citing some studies of men vs women thinking we risk creating or adding to existing neurosexism.
No Board Needs That. It Needs People Appropriate Skills Performing Well.
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html
No comments:
Post a Comment