Lessons from a lifetime of leadership on progress in the workplace

The United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goal #5 is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The UN says “gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. Advancing gender equality is critical to all areas of a healthy society, from reducing poverty to promoting the health, education, protection and the well-being of girls and boys.”¹ In other words, gender equality benefits not only women, but all humankind.

We need actionable ideas to make a difference in the world by changing the opportunity set for women and girls. The progress that has been achieved up to this point has taken a tremendous amount of work from countless women, but we shouldn’t expect that progress to continue under its own momentum. Many social, cultural and structural impediments still stand in the way of achieving gender equality organically, so we need to be thoughtful and active to keep making progress.

A personal story

My mother was a mathematician. Her mother, my grandmother, was a chemist, working in the lab. These were my role models and so I always assumed I could do science and math. I went on to get a PhD in geology, specializing in isotope geochemistry. Then, right after I graduated, I changed fields. Geology has very few women and I learned that although I could do the math, it was a misogynist field. Sexual harassment was endemic, so I transitioned to what I naively thought would be a better field—finance. Sadly, there are still issues for women in finance today and especially in Silicon Valley, it’s a “Brotopia.” Women entrepreneurs are still being hassled by men who want to take them out for drinks instead of taking seriously their efforts to raise investment capital. 

Over the years, as a founder and entrepreneur, I built a successful investment company with about 50% women in leadership.ⁱ Yet, in most ways, I have been oblivious to the systemic issues that women face. About twelve years ago, a female client asked our team to build out her investment portfolio to support women, a practice now widely referred to as gender lens investing. Along the way, she asked that I read the book “What Works: Gender Equality by Design” by Iris Bohnet. In doing so, I was shocked to realize that it is not just overt bias women experience, but unconscious bias that we all have and that is pervasive in our society and conditioned by cultural norms. And I realized that I, too, have that unconscious bias. 

So, how do we work around these unconscious biases? Our team has been fortunate to build on the shoulders of giants. Milestones include work by the Women’s Inclusion Project,² which has put a favorable spotlight on companies with women in leadership. We have also been able to invest with venture capital firms founded by women, and we have relied on the research of the Criterion Institute.³ We also conduct ongoing research on gender-inclusive investment strategies that seek to empower women by increasing their access to capital, advancing workplace equity, and creating new products and services.

How can we leverage research to encourage diversity and inclusivity in the workplace? 

Frank Dobbin at Harvard University analyzed three decades’ worth of data from more than 800 U.S. firms, concluding that typical mandatory diversity programs of the last 35 years do not work.⁴ For example, job tests are ineffective unless applied uniformly, and the research shows that they rarely are applied uniformly. And grievance systems designed to address employee complaints and concerns often don’t work—anything that shames people or makes them think they’re bad actors tends to have a negative effect.

Dobbin’s work shows that systems that help educate people about the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace are what yield results. Voluntary training gets high marks, as well as diversity task forces. Mentoring is also very effective, particularly for African American and Asian women.  

Lastly, there’s something I’ve learned from Eileen Fisher and her management style. A diverse and inclusive team can effectively implement a collaborative approach to decision-making, which may be more nimble than a traditional command and control structure. So, leveraging off Eileen’s leadership, we decided to implement small leadership groups to make decisions at the investment company I founded. We substituted an Operating Committee for the chief operating officer (COO) role. And I stepped down as CEO in favor of an Executive Committee. Using small, diverse groups of three to five people with a variety of perspectives proved highly effective for early buy-in and rapid deployment of decisions. 

What works for one company may be different than what works for another. The commonalities are that effective approaches emphasize strengths instead of weaknesses. 

Personal transformation is the first step toward impact at scale

In order to have impact at scale, we must start with ourselves. Cultural and social change starts with personal transformation. Understanding our own biases and the benefits of gender inclusion—and educating ourselves on the actions we can take—is how we can make a difference in the communities around us, including our workplaces. In that way, we can then make a difference that influences our culture and society. By changing ourselves, by using our wealth wisely and constructively, we can have real impact at scale.