Catalyst Blog

I was never a fan of scary movies because there are enough real scary things already out there! Below is a list of the Top Ten that my colleagues and I are scared about this Halloween. Freddy Krueger’s got nothing on these.

The Catalyst Top Ten Halloween Fears:

#10. That “zombie boards,” homogenous boards of directors that lead to group think and less innovation, will live on.

#9. That the “old guard” who thinks that the system works well and all workplaces are already meritocracies will never retire.

#8. That being captain of the football team will continue to evidence leadership capability for men, while any job that women have held outside of work—being president of their hockey team or founder of a nonprofit—will be seen as less-than-leadership.

#7. That the strong female leader/“wicked witch” stereotype will never go away.

#6. That myths and falsehoods, such as “women are more than half the labor force” or “women get paid more than men,” will continue to spread.

#5. That “analysis paralysis,” the belief that more data are needed before real workplace change can begin, will retain its lock on the workplace.

#4. That the gender pay gap widens and, like in a nightmare, no one will seem to notice or care.

#3. That organizations will continue to promote men based on their potential for leadership, while insisting that women show proof of performance before being considered.

#2. That silly and misleading phrases such as “mancession,” “mengagement” and “woman up!” will continue to poison our lexicon.

#1: That the mantra, “We’ve already got one woman,” will haunt boards, C-suites and executive ranks for decades.

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.