Can Small Wins Result in Top Spots for Women?
In the 21st century a strategy of "small wins" may hold an answer for bringing more women into top management. At least, that's the belief of Professors Debra Meyerson and Joyce Fletcher, who have just published an article about it in Harvard Business Review (January- February 2000).
Although women in large numbers have moved into the workplace, corporate cultures sometimes still hamper their progress into upper management, the authors claim. Such barriers tend to be less visible and more intractable than overt discrimination. One possible way of eroding them is through small wins, which are incremental changes in work practices and attitudes.
Meyerson and Fletcher use the example of a European retail company that suffered from high turnover among its female middle managers. In its informal culture, meetings were routinely canceled and regularly ran late, making it especially difficult on women, who tended to have more demands on their time outside the office. In this case, the small win occurred when senior executives recognized the problem and started using the term "unbounded time" to refer to meeting overruns, last-minute changes, and similar work habits. The term quickly circulated throughout the organization as senior managers began to model a more disciplined approach to the use of time. The result was a culture change that, the authors claim, was beneficial to the whole firm: "People realized that the lack of clarity and discipline in the company had negative consequences not just for people but also for the quality of work."
Whether or not the small-wins approach will become widely known and used, there are a number of factors that will encourage employers to promote more women into top positions in the new century. First, there's the subject of education. Women in the U.S. are earning over half of bachelor's and master's degrees and over 40% of law and medical degrees. There are similar trends in European nations. Second, job experience levels are increasing for women. Third, female business ownership is on the rise, at least in the U.S., giving women greater experience in running operations. Fourth, the workplace is becoming more flexible for both men and women, giving parents more options to enter the workplace.
For a quick overview of the progress and current status of women in management positions, HRI has compiled the following information:
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A summary of the article by Fletcher and Meyerson can be found here.
Although women in large numbers have moved into the workplace, corporate cultures sometimes still hamper their progress into upper management, the authors claim. Such barriers tend to be less visible and more intractable than overt discrimination. One possible way of eroding them is through small wins, which are incremental changes in work practices and attitudes.
Meyerson and Fletcher use the example of a European retail company that suffered from high turnover among its female middle managers. In its informal culture, meetings were routinely canceled and regularly ran late, making it especially difficult on women, who tended to have more demands on their time outside the office. In this case, the small win occurred when senior executives recognized the problem and started using the term "unbounded time" to refer to meeting overruns, last-minute changes, and similar work habits. The term quickly circulated throughout the organization as senior managers began to model a more disciplined approach to the use of time. The result was a culture change that, the authors claim, was beneficial to the whole firm: "People realized that the lack of clarity and discipline in the company had negative consequences not just for people but also for the quality of work."
Whether or not the small-wins approach will become widely known and used, there are a number of factors that will encourage employers to promote more women into top positions in the new century. First, there's the subject of education. Women in the U.S. are earning over half of bachelor's and master's degrees and over 40% of law and medical degrees. There are similar trends in European nations. Second, job experience levels are increasing for women. Third, female business ownership is on the rise, at least in the U.S., giving women greater experience in running operations. Fourth, the workplace is becoming more flexible for both men and women, giving parents more options to enter the workplace.
For a quick overview of the progress and current status of women in management positions, HRI has compiled the following information:
- 1) In most industrialized nations, the percentage of women who work has been rising for 40 years, as has women's percentage of the total paid workforce. In the U.S., the participation rate (percentage of women who work) is now 60%, up from 38% in 1960. Women make up about 46% of the U.S. workforce. In other nations, numbers tend to be a bit lower but the trends usually are similar.
2) The rates at which women have moved into management and administrative positions vary. On one end of the spectrum is Japan, where the labor force is 41% female and yet women comprise only 9% of managers and administrators. On the other end is the U.S., where women's percentage of the workforce and their overall percentage of managerial jobs are now nearly equal. Throughout the world, however, female managers tend to work in personnel and administrative positions rather than in professional and line jobs that traditionally have led to top positions.
3) So far, relatively few women have moved into the upper echelons of management. For example, women represent about 12% of corporate officers in Fortune 500 firms, according to the latest figures.
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A summary of the article by Fletcher and Meyerson can be found here.