1. Managers: The Dark Side of Diversity and the Bright Side
Wanda T. Wallace. Ph.D.
9 February 2011
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What are the barriers?
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3. What keeps women from advancing to senior ranks?
Senior Level Support
Lack of substantive feedback and counsel
Lack of well placed sponsors and mentors
No one to pull her up
Network and Organisational Savvy
Lack of access to informal interactions
Inadequate understanding of how to influence the organisation
Weak network
Leadership Style
Not like the norm or “like me”
Difficulty balancing aggressiveness, conflict and confidence
Not seeing how to communicate with impact
Career Path
Lack of career movement
Career tracks with ceilings
Access to “plum” assignments
Frustration
Lack of appreciation of her challenges
Isolation
Values versus actions
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What about the challenge of raising families or caring for others or balancing life?
In my experience…
Talented women question whether they can do both career and life only when things in the career are not going so well.
While it is the reason most women give the organisation for leaving, it’s not what they tell me.
Flexible policies seem to be reassuring.
Managers who appreciates the challenges are often enough.
How each woman defines “balanced” varies widely.
Younger men also want flexibility.
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5. Is this any different for other populations?
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6. Are diversity efforts worthwhile: Does diversity pay?
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Yes and maybe no. Well, it really depends. Why and under what circumstances is the question for the rest of the day?
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8. Yes, companies with more women have better financial performance
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9. Diversity Should Lead to Greater Creativity
In practice …
IDEO corporation – a design group – deploys a very diverse set of talents against each project
In writing and training….
Teresa Amabile, Mitch Ditkoff, Stan Gryskiewicz, Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap
Without diversity, group think is likely to occur
But… how diversity is managed may be critical
Challenger disaster
Recent research on brainstorming
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10. Can Diversity Hinder Performance?
Possibly – especially if not managed well.
Need to monitor sense of belonging and/or power differences
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11. Managers: Environment they create
Data from over 800 retail bank branches in the US
Racial diversity of each team is assessed between 0 (all white or all minority) and .50 (50/50 balance)
Performance declines when diverse members believe the environment is not conducive to learning
Performance increases when diverse members believe the environment is conducive to learning
The more racially diverse the team, the greater the impact
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12. US Retail Bank Branches
Learning
Environment
93.0
Total Performance
No Learning Environment .
72.0
0.00
0.50
Racial Diversity
Courtesy of Robin Ely – taken from Ely, Thomas and Padavic, Harvard Working Paper, 2010

13. Impact of Being One of a Few
“Breaking a lot of glass ceilings leaves a lot of shards.”
“The one and only woman.. tries to perform her ‘real’ job while representing and championing her demographic constituency … bearing the weight of the category.”
Feeling of isolation
Less at ease with team members
Censoring of ideas in case they are rejected or criticised
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14. Data from Client Survey
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15. Data from Another Client
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16. Women flock to female leaders: Why?
It is possible to get ahead in this organisation.
I believe she will understand my concerns.
There are more people like me.
I can find people with whom I have something in common other than work.
Others are struggling with the same issues with which I am struggling.
I believe she will be fair in assessing my contributions.
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17. Managers: The Dark Side
Without great management, diversity efforts will not succeed.
Worse, inappropriate management can derail both diversity efforts and damage performance.
In my coaching and development of younger women, the issue that most often prompts the question of leaving is the relationship with the manager.
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18. What management behaviours are most critical?
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19. What are the behaviours of organisations that manage diversity well?
From CRF members …
What are the behaviours of organisations that manage diversity well?
Behavior
# Times Mentioned
Support from senior leaders 8
Transparency in decisions
Valuing diversity of thought
Monitoring outcomes (e.g. KPIs, targets) 6
Open/unbiased managers
Acknowledging each person has potential 5
Good management and processes
Inclusivity 4
Willingness to listen
Diverse leadership 3
Understanding importance of diversity and the link to business objectives
Training 2
Coaching 1
Raise awareness of barriers
Role modeling appropriate behaviour
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My Opinion
Belief that alternative approaches could work
with some sensibility about how different is too different
Understanding of barriers and how as a manager to support employees
Practice of incorporating silent voices
Monitoring of where time is spent and with whom
Equal availability to all employees for informal conversations and advice
Providing honest, direct feedback to all
Ability to create a learning environment
Where at least ideas are encouraged, risks are taken and mistakes are discussed
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21. How Managers Can Help Women
Help her assess and develop her network - identify ways she can get to know people that are female oriented
Help her build her brand and reputation
Appreciate the risks and challenges of being “the only one”
Respect the stress she feels and monitor comments that bite
Help her understand how senior executives think – what they expect and what they want to know
Help her find and understand how to develop advocates and sponsors
Provide candid, actionable feedback that she can understand - she may argue with you but that is important and not a sign of disrespect
Assess her exposure to the main stream business and help her gain access
Develop her diplomacy skills
Groom her for a more senior role and encourage her to take smart risks

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Summary
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23. Changing Our Organisations
Understanding and tackling the barriers
Working with managers to improve practices
Senior level actively and visibly owning agenda
Metrics
Attending to who sponsors and advocates for whom
Removing biases – internally and with recruiting
Development efforts supporting and nurturing target populations
Reaching the tipping point
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“If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”  Edgar Schein
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