Читать книгу: «A Good Time to be a Girl»
Copyright
William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
Copyright © Helena Morrissey 2018
Cover design by Heike Schüssler
Graphs and charts by Martin Brown
Helena Morrissey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008241643
Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008241629
Version: 2018-12-05
Dedication
In memory of my wonderful grandmothers, Irene and Amy, who did not have the opportunities we have today.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Frontispiece
Dedication
Preface
1 A tale of two career women
2 New leadership required
3 The 30% Club: the strength of feminine power
4 Men, women, equal, different
5 Diversity of thought: welcome until anyone disagrees!
6 Why CEOs need to rethink diversity
7 Own the process
8 Camp CEO
9 Gender equality: good news for men and boys too
10 Women, money and power
11 We can write the future together
Afterword
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index
About the Author
About the Publisher
Preface
It’s a good time to be a girl! In all honesty, I don’t think I could have written that unequivocally before now. Of course, I’ve seen real progress for women over my fifty-year lifetime, thirty-year career in a male-dominated industry and twenty-five years of motherhood, beginning with one son and now (a final tally) nine children, six girls and three boys. It’s certainly been – increasingly – a better time to be a woman. As you read my story I hope you will see much to celebrate about the progress we’ve already made, and how you can create your own opportunities for success, whatever stage you are at in life. I recognise now that I made some ‘lucky’ choices along the way; by seeing what works and what doesn’t, my hope is that you might leave much less to chance.
But today’s opportunity is so much greater than the unfinished business of the past – and that’s why I’ve written this book now. Gender equality is a well-worn subject but it is not one we have mastered. Despite the huge body of literature, of advice, and opinion, along with very many campaigns and initiatives, the reality is that still only a small number of women have been making it to the top or feel they are fulfilling their potential. Many more tell me they feel discouraged about their prospects, unfulfilled or conflicted in their multiple roles as mothers or carers with careers. They can’t see the linkage between their own reality and gender equality efforts that often seem targeted at a narrow group of white, privileged and highly educated women, rather than at all women.
Companies, too, are frustrated by limited progress in the numbers of senior women after many years of feeling they are doing a lot to encourage their female and other ‘diverse’ talent. Sometimes, the result of all these special programmes has – inadvertently – been to do more harm than good; difference can seem difficult rather than desirable.
And yet, I am more optimistic today than ever before. I believe that we – men and women, working together – have an unprecedented opportunity to create a new, more successful, quite different approach, one that will not just create more possibilities for girls, but more choices for boys, too – a bolder approach to gender equality that’s not aimed merely at training a few women in working practices that have outlived their usefulness. Those women (and even fewer ethnic minority, gay or disabled people) who have made it to the top today are the exceptions, the ones who have mostly played by the rules of the existing game. We now have the chance to reinvent the game – not at the expense of men, but by creating new ways of working and living that fit the world of today and tomorrow, not the past. I have spent years listening and engaging with both women and men who tell me very similar things about the pressures they feel to comply with ‘norms’ that seem habitual rather than right for anyone, or relevant in a digital age.
It’s time to think bigger, to act more boldly and, with men, devise new ways of working, living and bringing up families together, as equals. But to make the most of this opportunity we need to stop leaning in to old-fashioned business practices, cultures, hierarchies and a division of roles that evolved long before technology, or before many girls had a great education.
Leaning in to the status quo is perpetuating what holds us back. Instead, we need to shape the world we want to see.
You may be dubious. How can we change a system that has been stacked up against women for so long? This book provides some practical suggestions for you now; a great example from the past lies in the true story of how the Women’s Tennis Association came about (you may have seen the movie The Battle of the Sexes). In 1970, nine courageous women led by Billie Jean King refused to ‘lean in’ to the US Tennis Association, having discovered that the winner of the US Open’s men’s tournament would receive twelve times the woman champion’s prize money. On the face of it, the men running the USTA had all the power, the financing and the media on their side.
But the women would not accept what was clearly an outrageous situation (and more extreme than we tend to encounter today, thanks in part to their trail-blazing). They established their own tour, signing on for just one dollar each. As Billie Jean put it, ‘We weren’t sure about our destiny but we knew it was in our hands for the first time.’ That destiny turned out to be just great. The new women’s tour soon attracted a sponsor and became the foundation stone of the Women’s Tennis Association, which today stages over fifty annual events, including four grand slam tournaments. In 2017, the men’s and women’s US Open champions both received US$3.7 million in prize money.
This redesigning-the-process approach is what we need today. But most gender equality efforts are far less ambitious. Too often, they are aimed at teaching women (and other ‘diverse talent’) how to play the existing system better. As a result, women are at best playing catch-up, while often feeling dissatisfied and questioning their choices. More of us are becoming lawyers, accountants and doctors, but in the meantime men are pushing onwards, upwards and outwards, taking more entrepreneurial, higher-risk routes to success. Start-ups run by women, for example, currently account for only 2% of US venture capital firms’ investments. Following in men’s footsteps, emulating the boys but trailing a few years behind them, is not the answer. As women, we have our own strengths to offer and today we have a better opportunity to demonstrate that than ever before.
What makes me so confident? – and so out of sync with many commentators, who routinely despair at everything from President Trump to gender pay gaps and the litany of revelations about sexual harassment? What about #MeToo, #TimesUp and, in the UK, the sordid revelations of sexual harassment at the notorious Presidents Club dinner? Those unsavoury behaviours had been going on for years; what’s different now is that they are being exposed and addressed. Look at what happened in the aftermath of the revelations about long-running sexual harassment in Hollywood, catalysed by the Harvey Weinstein allegations. We can understand why those who suffered did not speak up at the time; they felt alone, the ‘system’ was omnipotent – but today’s social media enabled them to join forces and change the way this issue will be seen from now onwards. Leaning in to a corrupt system may have seemed the ‘only’ option – now, together, we can transform that system.
The new opportunity I see arises from the very state of flux we find ourselves in. Today’s upheavals are unsettling and may even look like setbacks, but they also open the door to a whole new level of progress. That’s not just wishful thinking. My experiences have shown me that people become receptive to new ideas at moments of dislocation in a way that’s very unlikely in stable times. That’s a rational reaction: when the path is smooth, there is little incentive to consider a different route, but where there is turbulence, we need to explore new concepts that might show us a way through.
Today’s economic, political and societal challenges are certainly immense, driven largely by technology, which is rapidly undermining traditional power structures, changing the nature of leadership, the future of employment, and threatening our security. There is no playbook to consult. Leaders see the need for new thinking, but are grappling with what that looks like.
This book explains how gender balance is an important part of the solution, not – as so many see it – another problem to solve. If we can connect the two, the prize is very great, for each of us as individuals, for equality and for our ability to solve increasingly complex problems. The stark reality is that if we are going to resolve the big disconnects, we need to re-engineer our collective thinking, and that means involving more women. Feminine traits – empathy, collaborative behaviour, the ability to connect emotionally with those we are seeking to influence – can help us find answers.
Of course, men can have those feminine attributes too; what is important is to move on from the macho command-and-control regime that we have become used to for centuries. People will not be told what to do by leaders who don’t connect with them and they don’t trust.
So amidst the current upheavals, we have the chance to develop a new, shared understanding of what’s needed to be successful, in our family lives as well as our careers; what’s needed for men as well as women to have more freedom in how they live and for these positive changes to affect many people. Happily, in my experience many men in many countries around the world now want gender equality too – and that’s key to consigning the whole topic to the history books. Short of a revolution, people on the outside need those on the inside to help them progress. ‘He for she’ (and ‘she for he’) is the right approach.
I have seen change happen once many people start to share the desire to reach a certain outcome, and then work together towards it. A multitude of individuals taking small steps together in the same direction creates a powerful momentum.
So what happens next is very much up to all of us – and that includes you. You don’t need to choose between focusing on your own career and creating the conditions for broader progress; increasingly, those goals are linked. We can write our own story, individually and collectively. This book will show you how to make the most of today’s new opportunities, whether you are still at school, starting out in your working life, looking to progress at mid-career or already at a senior level, whether you are a daughter, son, parent, mentor, mentee, teacher, pupil, CEO or apprentice. First, you need an open mind; much of the current thinking around diversity is – ironically – encouraging the exact opposite. The diversity agenda has been hijacked by virtue signallers, with universities leading the way in shutting down freedom of expression in the name of ‘inclusion’ (sic). A diverse society needs diverse thinking, especially around how we create real inclusion, yet it has become heretical to question ineffective approaches. If we’re going to make real progress, we first need a licence to challenge what has clearly not been working.
I’m certainly not complacent. In my own lifetime I have already seen many stops and starts in the journey towards gender equality and of course there were very many years of effort long before, including the sacrifices made by women who had to fight hard for the right to vote a century ago. Even since I started writing this book a number of critical developments have occurred – and will continue to occur – because great change involves challenging episodes, lurches forward, steps back and the inevitable sense that we are faltering. But this is a necessary part of the process.
And today’s great opportunity is far from universal, with terrible atrocities against women and girls even on our own doorsteps: in England, a case of female genital mutilation (FGM) is discovered or treated every hour and child trafficking referrals (often involving girls for sexual abuse) hit a record high in 2017. Even equality for many will be a hollow victory if these crimes continue. We must also ensure that white, disadvantaged young men, who now have the lowest educational attainment levels of any group, aren’t left behind as we push on towards a world of greater opportunity for bright young women.
These are real challenges but they remind us of the need to improve the whole, not just the outcomes for a few. I am excited about exploring new ways of working that will enable more women to fulfil their potential, more men to play a greater role in their children’s lives, better thinking to solve today’s problems and broader definitions of success. A time when my six daughters not only can be but need to be themselves and when my sons have more choices than their father’s generation, too. A time when, as Lord Browne, former CEO of BP, who came out as gay after forty-one years in business, says, ‘women don’t have to be honorary men, blacks honorary whites, gays honorary straights’.
At which point, we’ll look back and wonder how we got so accustomed to anything else.
Chapter 1
A tale of two career women
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
MARK TWAIN
Consider two real-life career stories. The first involves a 26-year-old British woman who has just returned to her role as a fund manager at a prestigious City firm after five months’ maternity leave. She has worked for the company for five years, having joined its graduate training scheme straight after university. Over 1,500 applications were received for just twenty graduate places. A few days into the training programme, she was selected for a two-year apprenticeship in New York, working for one of the firm’s top global bond fund managers. A promising start to her career.
She found New York both daunting (it was the first time she had ever travelled beyond Europe) and exciting. The work was intensive and the hours long but she enjoyed learning new skills and was soon given more responsibility. As she thought about her future, she found it encouraging that two impressive American women in their forties were leading the firm’s rapid local growth.
When the young woman returned to London, she found the office environment markedly different. The pace was much slower – the daily morning meeting started at 11.45 a.m. – and she was the only woman in a team of 16. Still, the work was interesting and there was plenty of it. She was always first to arrive in the office each day, to deal with queries from Japanese clients in their time zone.
The firm made its annual promotions each April. The goal for high-flying graduates was to be promoted to manager level after five years – coinciding almost exactly with the woman’s return from her first maternity leave. Her two male contemporaries received the promotion. She did not. Disappointed, she asked where she needed to improve but the answer came back, ‘Your work is great, there’s just some doubt over your commitment with a baby.’ Shocked, she struggled to accept that her promising career had fizzled out so quickly.
Our second story concerns a woman nearly a decade older, the mother of five children. The youngest three have just celebrated their first, second and third birthdays. She also works as a fund manager in the City, for a less well known, much smaller firm. She joined seven years ago, as number two (out of two) on the bond desk, a junior role in a relatively backwater area for the company. On the face of it, a less promising situation than the younger woman’s original circumstances.
This story has a happier outcome, though, because the 35-year-old with five young children and just seven years’ service is suddenly – and quite unexpectedly – appointed chief executive officer following a takeover of the company. Over the next 15 years, the new CEO and her colleagues will grow assets under management from £20 billion to over £50 billion, develop a number of market-leading strategies and a strong reputation. She will also go on to have four more children – yes, nine in total.
One a tale of unexpected disappointment, the other of perhaps equally surprising success. Yet both stories are actually about the same woman – me.
So how did I fail to reach even the first rung on the corporate ladder at one firm, yet become chief executive in just seven years at another? Three factors created a formula for success.
The initial setback certainly taught me to do things quite differently the second time around. When I started working in 1987 I genuinely believed that hard work and aptitude determined how far anyone could progress. It simply did not occur to me then that the masculine dress code adopted by many career women at the time (big shoulder-padded suits) suggested that it was still very much a man’s world.
And of course my early experiences of working life had been unusually exciting for a graduate trainee, glamorous even, and that had made me quickly feel confident. The first Wall Street movie was released just after I moved to New York, as was Working Girl. The environment was energising. The two women I saw at the top, seemingly in control of their own destiny, distracted me from the reality that they were anomalous and had made either hard choices or sacrifices to get to the top. They travelled extensively and had limited time for their personal lives. Both married late: one was childless, the other underwent (well-publicised) fertility treatment to finally conceive her only child. While these women looked like wonderful role models in terms of career achievements, their lives certainly did not appeal to everyone.
The London office was very different to New York, yet I had no inkling of how my maternity would be perceived. I hadn’t given any indication that I was less ambitious or committed either during my pregnancy or after my return. When the list of promotions came around and my name wasn’t on it, I genuinely thought there was something I hadn’t been doing well, that I could improve for next time. When my boss made it so clear, in a way that wouldn’t happen today, I was disappointed and surprised but at least I knew where I stood. My first reaction was confusion – I simply hadn’t made the connection between being a new mother and failing to get that promotion. There was then a moment of clarity: I could not change my existing environment, so I had to find a new one.
The whole episode was a valuable career lesson. It taught me the need to be resilient, which has been so important in many situations – but not to be immutable, not to bounce back from the disappointment only to take another blow. When I started at the next firm, Newton Investment Management, I knew that I needed to take responsibility for my career. I needed to strategise more, not just wait for my contribution to be recognised.
During the recruitment process I had been interviewed by the firm’s founder, Stewart Newton. It was an encouraging sign, that someone so senior was involved in hiring someone so junior. Stewart was fascinating to talk to, he loved the bond and currency markets, was animated and probing and always on the lookout for investment talent. Towards the end of my first year, my (female) boss resigned and Stewart told me that he would hire a ‘bond guru’ to lead the area. I took a deep breath and asked if I might look after the portfolios in the meantime. Stewart agreed, with a few reasonable conditions. I would have to sit next to him and each afternoon we would meet in his office towards the end of the day to go over my trades and ideas. Effectively, and unofficially, he became my mentor, and the arrangement helped me to learn from him while he grew more confident in my abilities.
Stewart liked to move around the office, changing his seat every six weeks or so to oversee different areas of the investment team. I therefore had to move too, which seemed slightly embarrassing at the time but helped me to get to know my colleagues. The experience of speaking up and then being given the portfolios to manage encouraged me to seek other opportunities. I quickly realised that if I asked, the answer was usually ‘yes’, as long as I was making a reasonable request, had something to offer and was performing well. When interesting committees were formed and I wasn’t included, I asked for a seat at the table. I always phrased my requests constructively: ‘Oh, I wonder if I might join the economics group? Perhaps I could contribute the bond analysis and it would be useful for me to hear what else is being considered.’ There was no confrontation, no argument, and the door usually opened. Inevitably, there were setbacks, but I tried to learn and to see past them, with my recovery from that earlier disappointment encouraging me to persevere. (For the record, I have always struggled with negative feedback, finding it hard not to take criticism personally, and I’ve noticed this in other women too – although it may be that men are just better at disguising their feelings. We shall return to the subject later.) And while I sought opportunities to be heard, I stayed focused on performing well since that was the best advert for my capabilities.
I also looked to build my reputation in the marketplace. When I had been looking for that second job, it was harder than it needed to have been because I hadn’t built a network. I found that it was actually quite easy to be noticed as a young woman running bond funds. One year I was shortlisted for a ‘Fund manager of the year’ award and the other nominees were not just all men, but all called Paul. I did win, and I’d like to think it wasn’t just because I was the only one who could be easily identified, but I’ll never be quite sure. When the three Pauls and I were panellists together at investment conferences, the moderators would usually give me more airtime. There were advantages, but it was obvious that the few women who were making it through in my own industry were part of a very male-dominated club.
Two other critical factors helped me to progress so far and so quickly at Newton. I was working for a company where results were what mattered, and my husband Richard and I had developed a real partnership to care and provide for our family. Together with my newfound career awareness, this was a powerful combination, but by no means complex or mysterious.
The first company I had worked for was very traditional at the time, like most long-established City of London institutions. Founded in 1804 it was built on literally centuries-old practices that revolved around how men habitually liked to work. The atmosphere was ‘clubby’. There was a daily reminder of the hierarchy: each afternoon, a uniformed butler wheeled a trolley round the floor and served tea and biscuits to those of associate director or higher rank. Members of the asset allocation committee, the most senior group of investors, had typically served twenty years or more at the company. We would be asked to submit papers from time to time but weren’t invited to participate in their meetings. The structure was rigid and junior staff needed to fit in if they were to progress. While the New York office had its own more energetic and youthful culture, the London headquarters was the epicentre of power.
In contrast, there was a friendly, collegiate atmosphere at Newton. The very first week I joined, people asked for my opinion. If anyone had anything worthwhile to contribute, they would have the opportunity. The company didn’t really have a formal structure, more a fluid process built around the goal of delivering strong investment performance, with no one really paying much attention to status or tenure. My job interview with Stewart was not unusual; he took a great interest in hiring anyone who was going to be part of the investment team, however lowly. He made a point of frequently emphasising that the firm was a meritocracy and encouraged me to be my own character, which helped me to grow in confidence. I became increasingly bold in my investment views, but also more comfortable in being fully myself. I dressed more distinctively, and colleagues began to ask me to represent the firm to clients or at conferences. As expectations increased, even though I had inevitable moments of self-doubt, I rose to meet the next level of challenge. Partly, this was due to necessity: in this early phase of my time at Newton, Richard was made redundant and although he found another job in due course, I was spurred on by the responsibility of providing for our family. Yet persevering didn’t feel like an uphill struggle.
The qualities of the firm that enabled me to thrive weren’t the result of any diversity initiative but intrinsic to its everyday culture.
When I eventually left Newton after more than twenty years, my very first consideration when weighing up future opportunities was corporate culture. Did a potential employer welcome diverse opinions and encourage staff to express views that might differ from the consensus (or the boss); was there evidence of a meritocracy? I quickly turned down even interesting-sounding roles if it was also clear that the firm was rigidly command-and-control. By now I knew that a truly inclusive culture was essential if I was going to be able to really contribute, to be successful and happy. My new firm, Legal and General, didn’t just tick theoretical boxes; I had worked with enough people there (both senior and less so) on a variety of industry-wide projects to know we were a good fit.
Corporate culture has been in the spotlight since the 2008 financial crisis, with a number of scandals showing how poor behaviours can have disastrous consequences, destroying reputations and share prices. Culture, the social and psychological character of a firm, can seem a nebulous concept and it can be difficult to judge from the outside, especially since most mid-sized and large companies now make all the right statements about diversity and inclusion. The question is whether these statements are embedded in day-to-day behaviours.
A short while ago a woman approached me in the gym, seeking my advice. She was struggling to live up to what she felt was expected at the investment firm where she worked. I know the chief executive quite well and believe that he really wants women to thrive at the company. A few years ago he called me to ask how to attract more female graduates (at the time only10% of their applicants were women). He has been genuinely supportive of broader efforts to improve diversity in the currently very white, very middle-class and male-dominated fund management industry. Yet the woman’s experience was discouraging; the mother of two young children, she had been assured at the interviews that her role did not involve much travel. In fact, soon after joining she had been sent on four long-haul trips in quick succession. Another trip was looming the following week. The travel was taking its toll on both her family and her day-to-day work: worried that she was falling behind, she had gone into the office at the weekend to catch up, only to find many colleagues there. The family-friendly talk had proved just that.
I advised her to talk to her manager, to calmly explain that she was keen to work hard but the current situation was unsustainable – and to give specific examples. My suspicion was that no one had intentionally misled her, that they simply hadn’t joined the dots between what had been said and what was transpiring in practice (not an excuse, but often the reality). She may well have said yes to the first trip thinking it was a one-off, made a success of it and then been an obvious choice for further travel, with the interview fading from everyone’s consciousness except her own. The likelihood was that her manager would much rather adapt than see her resign.
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