This week, in celebration of IWD, I attended a couple of great events at the Rotman School of Business. One focused on the challenges for women working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), and the other looked at the path to gender parity in the C-Suite in industry more broadly, and featured Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the keynote speaker. Both events provided some practical insights about ways organizations can make simple shifts. And they can do it now.
Stop blaming the pipeline
The dearth of women in any given industry has long been attributed to the so-called “pipeline problem.” The argument goes something like this: much as we’d love to see more women, visible minorities, underrepresented groups in our job site/corner office/corporate board, there just aren’t enough of them who are interested or qualified. It’s a tried and true argument. It doesn’t hold up.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister debunked the notion of a pipeline problem in politics. He noted that skeptics, who feared a ‘competence compromise’ in assembling a gender-balanced cabinet, were silenced upon witnessing its execution. From a doctor and senior health care administrator as Health Minister to an indigenous Crown Prosecutor, Treaty Commissioner, and Regional Chief of Assembly of First Nations as Minister of Justice, these women had the goods.
The panelists agreed that the pipeline is not the problem in business either. Their suggestions included:
Update the Skills Matrix to be more inclusive
Panelist Satish Rai, CIO of Capital Markets at OMERS, argued that instead of insisting that women don’t meet the qualifications for senior roles, we look at job descriptions through a different lens. “We need to change the skills matrix to be more inclusive of women”. A laser-focus on technical skills above all else, can allow brilliant candidates to be overlooked.
Beatrix Dart, Director of Rotman’s Initiative for Women in Business, agreed that the skills matrix needs to move beyond ‘resume markers’, and technical qualifications, to people with a broader skill set. Proficiencies like consensus-building and the ability to have a skilled debate are essential to leadership – and are often associated with women.
Soft skills are transferable skills.
At a panel hosted by the Institute for Gender and the Economy, Andrea Stairs, GM at eBay Canada, agreed, acknowledging that her degree in medieval history, might not have been an obvious stepping stone to an executive career. While she did go on to a degree in law and business, she emphasized the importance of thinking about “leadership as a skill set”. And when it comes to the makeup of that set, “I don’t think of them as soft skills, they’re transferable skills”.
Transferable skills are a fundamental set of capabilities, which can be applied just about anywhere, in a range of roles and industries. They include skills like communication – verbal and written, listening, empathy, delegation and prioritizing.
Huda Idrees, CEO of Dot Health, agreed that in the tech world “communication is important”. And that tech companies need to seek candidates with more than just technical skills: “we need smart people who can talk”. The panel agreed that in creating respectful workplaces in an industry known for frat culture, communication and emotional intelligence are crucial.
Research shows that women score consistently higher in the emotional and social competencies correlated with effective leadership than men. After the financial crisis of 2009, McKinsey published research asserting that of the 9 leadership behaviours that drive organizational performance, 5 of them were more effectively by women: people development, expectations and rewards, role modeling, inspiration and participative decision making.
This is not to say that women don’t possess technical skills, or that these skills aren’t important. There are record numbers women graduating from university with a wide range of aptitudes. And I’d certainly like to know that my doctor went to medical school, and that whoever designed the bridge I drive over each day knew the fundamentals of structural engineering.
The ability to communicate and make your ideas known, to collaborate with colleagues, to listen, empathize, to ask good, curious questions… these abilities are not only transferable to any context, they’re key to organizational success.
The businesses I heard from this week expressed a determination to cast a wider net, one that will prioritize transferable skills in their leadership development. And one that’s likely to be more inclusive.
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