Because It's 2015

When asked why he had put together a gender balanced Cabinet, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded "Because it's 2015". This riposte reverberated around the world and is now part of the zeitgeist.

So now it's 2016 and the World Economic Forum had a panel discussion of gender parity, or more accurately, a panel lamenting the gender gap. It's well worth watching (click here). The three most interesting panelists had different, complementary messages to deliver:

• Trudeau emphasized the deliberate and strong effort made to attract women candidates so that there were many competent elected women to choose from when he formed his cabinet. Changing things take work.
• Sheryl Sandberg  (author of Lean In - I really must read that book!) contributed many discouraging statistics. Did you know that boys receive higher allowances and do less work? We can only change things if we change attitudes; and that must start early.
• Melina Gates redirected the discussion to the difficulties of women in developing countries who struggled to get basic healthcare, family planning and education. She also emphasized the need to encourage girls to consider careers in STEM: a field full of opportunity that could benefit from the unique contributions women tend to make.

All the participants bemoaned the fact that women still suffer from discriminatory attitudes, an uneven share of work in the home, less pay and less opportunity. In developed countries, and especially in developing countries. And there is a strong correlation between gender parity and economic prosperity as described in a previous post here.  

When asked for advice, a consensus recommendation was to seek out mentors/sponsors and participate in groups that support and nurture the advancement of women (lots of support for Lean In groups). Paradoxically, on the same day I watched this, I had an introductory session with my first formal mentee, arranged through the Women in Communications and Technology Association.

As my mentee and I exchanged our professional histories in our 'getting to know you' meeting, she was stunned to hear a couple of my career anecdotes.

As a new graduate with a Masters in Math, I interviewed with IBM (back in 1969 - wow was it that long ago?). They wouldn't hire me for my preferred job as a Marketing Engineer because "we don't hire women for that job." "Why?" I asked.  "Because women can't do it."  "How do you know if you've never tried?" "We just know". Back then, they weren't embarrassed about explicitly admitting their bias. And I didn't sue them.

My second experience  took place in 1988. I learned through the back door that Company X had dithered over a month before hiring me as CEO of a small joint venture: they had only interviewed me at the insistence of an enlightened executive recruiter and had had no intention to even consider a woman for the job.

So, have we made any progress? Certainly employers wouldn't dare admit their bias out loud as IBM did. In fact, today IBM vocally espouses the advancement of women. But I suspect there are still lots of Company Xs who can't envision a woman in an executive job. They just don't dare say it aloud.

My new mentee disheartened me dismally with her own anecdote. When she came back to her employer after maternity leave, she was told she had to prove herself all over again despite her years of experience. She was back to Square One.

These things shouldn't still be happening.

Because it's 2016.

TEDxChange

The TEDxChange conference was sponsored by the Gates Foundation to promote awareness and support of the Millennium Development Goals and was convened in New York City during the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals Summit (September 20-22, 2010). 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.  The MDGs, as they’re affectionately known, set out goals to wipe out poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, empower women and reduce child mortality by 2015. However, they’re not widely known.  You can click here if you went to refresh yourself on the details of the goals.  I attended one of many local events around the world where you could 'attend' the event by live webcast.

Melinda Gates said that there was much to celebrate on progress to meet the goals but that there was much left to be done.  And she proffered advice on how we could meet the Goals:  social organizations focused on global development, rather than having total contempt for business organizations, should consider emulating the strategy and tactics used by successful corporations.  Gates  chose Coca Cola as the archetypical successful global organization and compared and contrasted how it was .  In a typical Gates analytic fashion (I guess it runs in the family), she laid out three tactics used by Coke for reaching their goals and showed how these tactics could work for social organizations as well.

Real Time Data

Business enterprises are run with a keen eye on real time data – Coke knows exactly how many bottles they’ve sold on a daily basis and where they were sold.  In contrast, the typical development project gets evaluated at the end of a project.  While the project is underway, it’s like bowling in the dark.  You can hear the pins falling, but you’re not sure which ones, until the lights come on after you’ve finished.  “Real time data turns on the lights” Says gates.    You can only optimize development projects if you get a stream of real time data that allows you to continuously adjust for success.

This is clearly the approach Melinda and Bill Gates have taken with their philanthropy efforts.  They started with deep and thorough analysis of data to determine how their foundation could make the most impact on the world.  They focused on what they saw as the highest-gain activities, and they continue to analyze the success of their efforts through intense data analysis.

Local Entrepreneurship

Coke, like many other American companies, originally tried to enter new developing markets by exporting US business practices, but the results were mediocre.   By 1990, Coke was training local entrepreneurs; they even lent them money to get their businesses off the ground.  They now have 15,000 such entrepreneurs in Africa.  In Tanzania, 90% of their total sales come from entrepreneurs selling Coke from push carts.

This idea is being applied to the development world too.  A great example can be seen in Ethiopia’s health extension program.  Since 2003, Ethiopia has trained 35,000 heath extension workers who bring the ratio of health works to population from 1 in 30,000 to 1 in 250.  They reach the millions of people living in remote villages in the country who previously had no access to healthcare.

Aspirational Marketing

Intensive and pervasive marketing has been a key to Coke’s success around the world. Gates argues for the same kind of marketing to development projects.  We were treated to a clip of Wavin’ Flag and reminiscence about I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing. 

How could the lessons learned from Coke’s marketing be applied to the development projects?  Perhaps by stressing positive aspirational messages instead of minatory messages.  For instance, instead of sermonizing about the perils of open sewage, how about an ad campaign that gives some sex appeal to toilets?  Sex appeal and toilets, you say?  In one state in India, young women are encouraged to seek husbands who have a toilet.  The campaign’s slogan is  “No loo, no I do”. 

 Mellinda ended on a positive note, speaking of the potential in the futureto improve the world, if we’re willing to accept tried and tested ideas for success as practised by successful organizations in any arena.