Posts Tagged ‘championing women’
50 Forward
“You have in you the power to change this world for the better,” said CCH Champion Michael Bach, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, KPMG. “Be it a small change, or a large one, I challenge you to do something to effect that change.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
You don’t have to work at Catalyst to be a catalyst for change. As we turn the page on 2011, I call on you—a Catalyst supporter—to make an impact in 2012. Catalyzing offers one clear path:
Seek sponsorship and sponsor others, especially talented women. Do something about sexist media. Support political candidates who support you. And if you don’t think you have meaningful institutional support or clout to make an impact, think again. Here are tips on how to rock the boat without falling out and make change in an unsupportive environment.
Catalyst has strived to make workplaces more equal for the past 50 years. And along the way, we’ve learned that champions come in many forms. What unites them? A champion is committed to change—and acts on that commitment.
Happy New Year—may 2012 be a year of real action, for the benefit of all.
Champions for Change
Last night we celebrated ten years of Catalyst in Canada at our sold-out Catalyst Canada Honours gala dinner. We kicked off the festivities by opening trading at the Toronto Stock Exchange. And in the evening, we inaugurated The Catalyst Catalyst Honours, recognizing three champions of women’s advancement in business: Ed Clark, President and CEO of TD Bank; Colleen Sidford, Vice President & Treasurer of Ontario Power Generation Inc.; and Sylvia Chominska, Group Head of Global Human Resources & Communications at Scotiabank. It was so moving that I want to share the day with this fresh posting from Deborah Gillis, Vice President, North America and head of our Catalyst Canada office. Coming soon: pictures, video and a retrospective of the celebration!
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If a single theme predominated the inaugural dinner of The Catalyst Canada Honours last night, it was change.
Scotiabank President and CEO Rick Waugh, who is also Chair of Catalyst Canada Advisory Board identified the most important change over the past ten years in the business world as “the cultural shift that has begun in Canadian business and in our broader society.”
Champion Sylvia Chrominska spoke of the cultural shift at Scotiabank since she started in 1979, as more women joined the senior ranks, and both women and men began to recognize the business benefits of diversity at the very top.
TD Bank Financial Group’s Ed Clark—another champion—spoke of the journey for answers to the increasingly complex issues of diversity, and the importance of commitment from everyone in the organization.
Champion Colleen Sidford’s leadership as Vice-President of Ontario Power Generation has shifted attitudes and created opportunities for women in the traditionally male nuclear industry.
In preparing my own notes, I also thought back to one of my earliest disillusionments: the realization in my final year of high school that a university education would likely allow me to earn only 69.6 cents for every dollar in the pay packet of my male colleagues.
Time for introspection. Some of it, not pretty.
I thought about the first Catalyst research project in Canada. In 1997, Canadian CEOs believed that women in senior management would jump from 13% to 24% by 2002. Well, by 2002, senior management ranks were 14% women. In 2008, the percentage had reached 16.9%. In fact, if we continue at the current rate of change, we won’t see that 24% prediction until 2022!
And the pay gap that shocked me so much in 1983? In 2008, women earned 68.3 cents to every dollar earned by our male colleagues!
So what is this cultural shift that everyone is seeing? I believe we’ve seen a fundamental shift in the conversation, a shift that gives me hope that things are about to change.
Back in 1983, I believed that women should earn as much as men because it was fair. Fairness was the basis of the equality rights section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Fairness was the foundation of the Employment Equity Act of 1985.
Businesses complied with the legislation, but compliance alone does not create equity or an inclusive workplace. Today, CEOs like Rick Waugh, Ed Clark, and Bill Downe know that their businesses are stronger, more competitive, and ultimately more profitable because their senior ranks reflect the Canadian population in all its diversity. They know that women bring a valuable perspective to their senior tables.
Most importantly, they know that Canadian companies and the Canadian economy can no longer afford to ignore the talents, skills and commitment of 50% of the population – not to mention those who are outpacing men in higher education degrees.
What I see is both a conversion and a conversation that has shifted from fairness to business case. The participants in the conversation are no longer only women standing outside the senior management door. The conversation—and the passionate advocacy—has moved through that door, and men have become partners in the conversation.
And the question is no longer “Why?” but “How?” and “How quickly?”
I take considerable pride that Catalyst Canada has lived up to our name over the past ten years. Our partnership with business has provided a venue for the conversation. Our research has informed business programs to support the advancement of women, such as Sylvia’s work at Scotiabank, Colleen’s emPOWERed women program at OPG, and Ed’s Women in Leadership initiatives.
The Catalyst Canada Honours dinner marked our tenth anniversary. Our Champions—Ed Clark, Sylvia Chrominska, and Colleen Sidford—are leading the way. And, if the enthusiasm of the sell-out crowd of over 500 members and friends is any measure, their advocacy is gaining supporters in all sectors and businesses across Canada.
Let the conversation continue! Bring on the change!
Empathize This
Change can happen in the least likely of places.
At the Waldorf during our Awards Conference in March, I overheard a well-dressed man grumble: “Now I know what it feels like to be a woman.” He didn’t say this during a break-out session—he was waiting in a long line for the men’s bathroom! Staff at the hotel had converted several Men’s rooms to Ladies rooms— hence the shortage.
But the comment got me thinking…sometimes all it takes to understand another person’s perspective is to stand in their shoes—even for a brief moment.
At the conference, Frank J. McCloskey, Vice President of Diversity at Georgia Power, explored this very theme. During a session on men supporting women’s advancement, Frank said his upbringing had conditioned him to be a “typical guy.” Raised in the South, he played football at Georgia Tech, drank beer, and never thought about inequality. “Men—we are just who we are—we are not a very evolved species,” he mused. He said he suffered from a “pathology” that held “anyone who is different is less than.”
Frank had an “a-ha” moment on inequality when he revisited a painful episode involving his wife Debbie. “Whatever progress I have made in my own way was because of pain I inflicted on someone else,” he said. Empathy was the key to understanding his wife’s perspective.
Frank recalled that when Debbie was pregnant with their first child, she asked him pointedly: “Are we going to do this together?” Frank responded: “I’ll be with you all the way.” But soon after their child was born, Frank was offered a promotion. “It was a 2 year commitment— 24/7— and I accepted it,” he said.
It wasn’t until years later that he understood what he had done to his wife. And he felt terrible. He had accepted the promotion “without thinking of the consequences it would have on her and the child,” he explained, noting that the incident had been “the first time in our relationship that we had a breach of trust.”
Life lessons were thrust into sharp relief. “I managed to understand that maybe someone else has a different life experience. And once I started hearing other women’s voices…I was hearing things that were so difficult to hear,” he said. For most of his life he tried to minimize those voices and blame the women so that he would feel comfortable. “It took me a long time…to acknowledge that maybe something is going on with others that is not going on with me.”
This realization led Frank to ask himself two questions: “What am I doing to create that experience for you? And what should I do with myself to counter it?”
At Georgia Power, Frank oversees an array of gender initiatives. He believes that “leadership means men being part of the solution.” They should “unravel the pathology, hold themselves accountable.” He now believes, he said, that “if anything takes away from women as a whole, I should fight it.”
Catalyst research suggests that before individuals will support efforts to right an inequality they must first recognize that the inequality exists. Here is Frank’s advice for men on creating awareness: “Who are those that are closest to us outside of work—wife, daughter, sister?” he asked. “Say to them, ‘Help me understand how your life is different from mine.’”
For the women reading this, I’ll add some advice of my own. Allow the men you know to see the world from your eyes. Share your experiences. It can change their perspective, or even their lives.
2010 Catalyst Awards Reflections
“If you want to understand the past, look at current conditions,” said PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi at last night’s Catalyst Awards Dinner, quoting an old Chinese proverb. “But if you want to understand the future, look at today’s actions.”
All the great speeches and conversations about the Award-winning gender initiatives from Campbell Soup, Deloitte, RBC, and Telstra demonstrated a bright future for women in business. A lot of work remains to be done, but I left The Waldorf last night knowing we were a little closer to gender parity in business leadership.
The day was filled with engaging, inspirational, and sometimes hilarious moments. I appreciated the down-to-earth advice on men championing women from Frank McCloskey, Vice President of Diversity at Georgia Power. “It’s a manager’s obligation to create a work environment where everyone is valued,” he told a standing-room crowd. “I hope y’all change your culture—if not, we’ll take your people,” he jibed.
Later that day, Irene Chang Britt, President of Campbell Soup, North America, discussed her views on work-life. Like me, she does not like to use the word “balance.” She prefers the term: “work-life integration.” After all, she said, “We’re all nuts if we think we’re balanced.”
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