Eliminate behaviors and practices that disproportionately and negatively impact women.

What Women Want

• A level playing field
• To be valued and respected
• No discrimination or sexual harassment
• To be judged on their performance (output and results), not on their presence (hours) in the office

The Problem

Some workplace practices and behaviors disproportionately impact women.

Some customary practices, like regularly scheduling 7:00 a.m. meetings, are seemingly benign. But such practices usually adversely impact women more than men because they are more likely the ones seeing their kids off to school or day care.

Others are even more harmful. While instances of overt discrimination or harassment of women may have declined in past decades, the recent outpouring of women sharing awful experiences painfully reminds us that it’s still occurring. Today, bias against women is primarily unconscious or manifests in the form of microaggressions that are not fully recognized or understood.

Macroaggression occurs on a systemic level, for instance, in the form of unequal pay practices or conditions for a certain group of people. In contrast, microaggressions are intentional or unintentional verbal or nonverbal behaviors that occur in everyday interactions, which are often unacknowledged and casually degrade, demean, or put down someone who is part of a group (for instance, a gender, race, or ethnic group).¹

According to a 2015 report on gender bias in the G20 nations from British international policy institute Chatham House, “Gender bias perpetuates low expectations of women’s human value and capabilities.”²

Gender microaggressions include sexual objectification, the use of sexist language, making assumptions based on gender, the use of sexist humor, slights, insults, or using a derogatory analogy. Here’s a blatant example that I can’t forget: Clémentine Pirlot, a software developer in Paris, posted a message online about a time when she and her male colleagues gathered to have a drink together after work. Later that evening, when the director of the team joined them, he said: “Move over, I need room for my big d—k.”³ (His word rhymes with kick and refers to the male sexual organ.)

The blatant, more obvious incidents like Clémentine’s are easy to spot. But what about the much more prevalent kind, the ones that are much harder to notice unless you are like IT and Innovation Manager Sasha Shlieienkov, and you are more aware and start looking?

I gave a keynote presentation to group of 40 male and 40 women business leaders about how they could better recruit, retain, and advance women and work more effectively together. We had the same number of men and women because we made it a registration requirement that in order to attend, you had to sign with a colleague of the opposite sex. Before the session started, a man in his early 30s came up to greet me and told me how eager he was to hear my presentation, and how he had cleared his schedule in order to be able to attend. After the session, he came back up to thank me for sharing such helpful tips. He’s trying to be a good guy by learning about how to work more effectively with women and by supporting women entrepreneurs.

Then he spotted a male entrepreneur he knew. The entrepreneur was talking to a young female IT professional. They were deep in conversation on an important topic, but to the businessman who had just spoken to me, the young woman was invisible. He jumped right in and began talking to the male entrepreneur. He did not acknowledge, recognize, or greet the young woman. He did not apologize for interrupting her.

When he left, the entrepreneur, the woman and her manager, Sasha Shlieienkov, were quiet and reflective. We didn’t know why the man failed to acknowledge the woman – gender, age, excitement about seeing his friend, or just plain oversight? Sasha told me that before my session he would not have noticed the incident, and that likely over the years there were hundreds of similar interactions. He wished he had said something. The woman wished she had said something. I often wish I could say just the right thing. It’s hard. It takes preparation and practice and, even with both, it still takes courage.

Here are six common types of microaggressions toward women:

1. Calling women by seemingly endearing names that are not appreciated and which some women even find offensive. For example, the leader of a very large company in Latin America shared with me how much she hates it when one colleague calls her reina (queen).
2. Describing women’s actions in ways that would not be used to describe men who did the same things. For example: labeling a woman as too nice to be able to do a job, bossy, a drama queen, too aggressive, needy, high-strung, and so on. As one woman at a New York City tech start-up company told me, “I’m constantly aware that I am the only women who works at the company, as I am regularly told how much ‘nicer’ I am to work with than any of the other guys at my company.” Although this may seem like a compliment, that’s not how most women would take it. Women who negotiate for a promotion or an increase in their compensation are 30% more likely to receive feedback that they are “bossy,” “too aggressive,” or “intimidating” than men who negotiated for the terms of their compensation.⁴

Observations of venture capitalists (VCs) in Sweden, of all places – one of the most gender-equal countries in the world – show just how differently men and women are sometimes viewed. Entrepreneurs who pitched during 2009 and 2010 were described in the following ways: Male entrepreneurs were described as “young and promising” whereas women were thought of as “young and inexperienced”; men were described as “experienced and knowledgeable,” but women as “experienced but worried”; men were described as “cautious, sensible, and level-headed,” while women were “too cautious and unsure.”⁵

3. Believing and acting as if women are weak and need the protection of men. One example of this is thinking or saying that a woman would not want the same type of stress, workload, or challenging assignment as a man. Psychologists Peter Glick, PhD, and Susan Fiske, PhD, call this benevolent sexism. Their research indicates that men who exhibit this type of microaggression are less likely to give women candid feedback and challenging assignments, two management actions that are critical to women’s advancement and that you’ll read more about in the next chapter.⁶
4. Characterizing a woman as too emotional or unstable, especially if you are being challenged or questioned by her. For example, calling a woman a nag, telling her to calm down, or saying things like: “I don’t know why you are so upset” or “You are such a diva.”
5. Touching women without their consent. You would think that this could go without saying, but it still happens. Unless it’s completely acceptable in your culture, you should not touch people you work with. An example of when it is acceptable is in countries where people automatically kiss each other’s cheeks when they meet. In that case, you’d want to greet women according to culturally accepted norms. The only question in these circumstances could be, is it one, two, or three kisses? In all other circumstances, even though your intentions may be completely harmless and even supportive, physical contact, like putting you hand on a woman’s shoulder, should be avoided.

As for putting your hand on a woman’s butt – well, that should never happen! Believe me, I witnessed just that at a work gathering, and it was caught on camera! In case you are wondering what happened, yes, the man who did it was fired. It was the third inappropriate incident, and he already had been reprimanded, instructed, and given two earlier chances to improve his conduct.

6. Making sexually laden innuendos about or to women. Here are a few examples of conversations relayed to me.
   • Between two men in an open office environment: Male A: “That was a short call with X (female) client.” Male B: “Yeah, seven minutes plus cuddling.”
   • During a lunch meeting, a man admonished his female coworker by saying, “You can’t even order because you’re all nervous staring at the good-looking waiter.”
   • A freelancer who worked with us would come in and without fail ask my female coworker if she was “getting any.” He asked her that same question every time he saw her.

Some of these subtle and not-so-subtle actions or comments may not seem like a big deal and one incident in isolation may not be. In reality, these types of incidents inhibit women from doing their best work and undermine their success. Women cite these types of disrespectful, sometimes toxic behaviors as one of the factors that influence their decisions to leave a job. A steady diet of microaggression disconnects and wears women down. When they cite these types of behaviors as factoring into a reluctant decision to leave a job they otherwise like, they describe it as “death by a thousand cuts.”

Unintended Consequences

When a coaching client of mine became the head of technology and information at the company where she worked, she joined an all-male executive team. The team enjoyed surfing together and invited her to join them. That was great. They had included her in their camaraderie building. But when she arrived at the beach, she found out that there was no place for her to change. Although at first she felt uncomfortable, she quickly came up with a novel solution. She asked the men to get in a circle with their arms outstretched to hold their towels up with their backs turned toward her. She then got in the middle of the circle and changed. My client was a great sport about it, yet the truth is that she still felt uncomfortable.

These are the types of awkward situations in which women find themselves that over time can disconnect them from their workplace colleagues.

The guys did the right thing by including their female colleague in their teambuilding activity. They just needed to take one more step and think about the environment from her perspective.

Future Planning: Take a few minutes to think through an activity, event, or meeting in advance with the women on your team or your wife/sister/girlfriend. Think through whether your planned activity will feel welcoming to everyone. Better yet, come up with an event or activity by asking a diverse group of people for their ideas. If all else fails, at least bring a pop-up tent or equivalent.

SOLUTIONS – WHAT WORKS

What One Leader Did

Waiting to enter an important meeting with her boss, a woman heard a man say, “It’s a good thing someone brought a woman along, in case we need coffee.” While her boss also overheard the remark, he didn’t say anything. The woman was so upset by the comment maker and even more so by her boss, that she didn’t say a single word during the entire meeting.

At the end of the meeting, the man who made the comment asked the woman’s boss if they could count on his business. The boss responded, “Absolutely not! The decision maker here is my colleague (pointing to the woman), and you completely blew your chances to do business with us prior to the meeting.” With that, he stood up, motioned to his female colleague and walked out, leaving a significant business opportunity on the table.

Outside the meeting, the boss told his female colleague, “Had I said something to him about his remark when he made it, it might have embarrassed him, but he’d likely do it again. I had to do something that he and everyone else would not forget. I had to hit him where he’d really feel it – in his business results and pocket.”

What You Can Do

Move from focusing on exclusively on tasks TO focusing on results and relationships. Start by evaluating and improving your own behavior before you focus on the conduct of others.

How?

Evaluate and adjust common workplace practices. Assess your team and office norms and adapt them so they don’t negatively impact any group of employees.

• Step 1. List your team practices and norms. For instance, meeting times, networking interactions, teambuilding activities, customer events.
• Step 2. Ask your team members if any of the items on the list are negatively impacting them. (This will help all team members, not just women.)
• Step 3. Make adjustments, if at all possible.

Here are some examples of adjustments you could make:

• Out of recognition of the lifestyle of the parents in his workplace, one executive prohibits anyone in his division from scheduling regular meetings that start any time after 4:00 p.m. Of course, if there’s an important reason, like an urgent customer need, for why a meeting needs to start after 4:00 p.m., then that’s when the meeting will be held. This may seem like a small or inconsequential action, but even seemingly insignificant actions you take to create an environment where all your teammates can excel will have a ripple effect.
• Hold networking, customer, or teambuilding events in places where everyone, including women, feel comfortable. Don’t use exclusively male social gatherings to discuss business. And definitely don’t ditch a female coworker after a business dinner to go to a strip club with your male colleagues, as recently happened to a woman I know.
• If there’s only one member of the opposite sex being included, don’t have team/strategy/business planning sessions where everyone stays overnight in a house. In case you are surprised by this example, I assure you it is true. Several women I’ve spoken with have told me how often it has happened to them and how uncomfortable they’ve been.

Start with any action you feel comfortable taking. It will help you take other steps that improve your gender intelligence, work environment, leadership, and results.

Conduct an annual compensation review of your team members. Sort by gender (and other criteria that would help you identify any inadvertent discrepancies. You don’t have to wait for your company or HR to do a salary review, you can do one for your team. Compare by position, experience, performance. If you find a misalignment, work with your leadership team to address it.

While we like to think that there are no longer differences in what men and women are paid for the same job, we’ve seen through the example of proactive companies that include Salesforce that unfortunately they do persist. Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, has regularly required these types of reviews and has made millions of dollars in adjustments to ensure gender pay equity.

When women make the same amount of money as men for the same work, in addition to the increase in fairness, there is the increase in income that translates to more money flowing into the economy and spent on goods and services, increasing business and growth for others.

Recognize your own behavior and interrupt your unconscious biases. Gender bias is one of our most ingrained biases. We begin to develop our feelings and opinions about men and women, boys and girls from an early age. Our perspectives are formed by a host of experiences, including how we were brought up, what our parents told us or didn’t tell us, what our parents did (and do), who our friends were (and are), and who our parents’ friends were (and are) and what they did (and do), as well as through messages we see in the media throughout our lives.

Moreover, we get mixed and incomplete messages about how to collaborate with, compete with, and support members of the opposite sex. At school, we both cooperate with and compete with our classmates. On sports fields, women and men play separately and rarely compete with one another. We form friendships with members of the opposite sex, but these friendships often come under various types of pressure. Then we get to the world of work and it’s a whole new game, one for which we aren’t well prepared. It’s tough.

Since I grew up in the Middle East and India and spent many years researching and working in emerging economies, I am also acutely aware of the additional onerous influences that patriarchal societies have on conscious and unconscious gender bias.

Here are a few actions you can take to reduce two of the most common types of unconscious gender bias.

Notice how you describe women. If you find yourself thinking or describing a woman in a work setting as too ambitious, bossy, emotional, timid, needy, or pretty, do as follows.

• Step 1. Ask yourself, “Would I say that about a man in the same circumstance?”

Kristen Pressner, the global head of Human Resources for the Diagnostic Division of Roche calls this the “Flip It to Test It” approach.⁷ For example, when talking with a woman about her business plans, ask yourself if these are the same questions you’d ask a man. And, when posing questions to women, don’t focus on what can go wrong if you typically ask men about the upside of their plans. Remember the study about the questions that VCs ask that is discussed in the Introduction.

• Step 2. Describe the impact of her behavior without labeling it.

Example: “It’s difficult for me to give my full attention to what you are saying when you raise your voice.”

Don’t assume that a woman who only works in the office during “regular” business hours works less than or is less ambitious than her coworkers who spend more time in the office. The value assigned to the number of hours worked in the office is a hot button for some managers, particularly baby boomer managers and executives.

Focusing unduly on the number of hours an employee works in the office is an outdated practice. The paradigm has shifted. The important questions in today’s environment is whether your employees interact effectively with one another. Do they coordinate and collaborate? Do they anticipate and address customer needs? Do they produce the desired level of results? A woman (or, for that matter, anyone) who doesn’t spend extra time in the office or asks for a flexible schedule may be working at home at night, early in the morning, and/or on weekends. She may be more productive in a shorter amount of time than her peers.

Your employees will appreciate it when you recognize their needs and are flexible with their schedules. Your accommodations increase their loyalty to the organization and positively impact employee retention. Often requests for flexibility don’t last forever, so you don’t need to put a woman who makes a case for a flexible schedule in the “mommy-track” category. (More on this topic in the next chapter.)

Think differently about who is or is not in the office. An alternative way to think about time invested by your employees is to ask these types of questions: Do people get their work done and go beyond expectations offering new ideas and value? Do they work well with their colleagues? Are they available in situations where they have to be? For example, if you are a partner at a law firm, are the associates working with you on a case available for long hours, client meetings, and when a judge requires? Are they responsive to customer needs and your requests? If the answers to these types of questions are yeses, then unless your team works in places like a retail establishment, factory, or call center, it should not matter if your employee generally arrives at the office at the start of the work day and leaves right on time.

Over the course of your career, any number of circumstances may cause you not to want to or be able to put in as many hours in the office. If you create a flexible, but accountable, work environment for women, everyone will benefit, including you.

Acknowledge and apologize for your own inappropriate remarks or behavior. It is bound to happen, it happens to all of us, including me. For example, I tend to call people by endearing names and reach out to touch them on the arm or shoulder. I know I need to be very aware of when it’s okay to do so or not, but sometimes I act instinctively.

You are going to slip up, not think through something you are saying spontaneously, or incorrectly assume something you have said is funny when it’s not. Everybody does. Here’s an example relayed to me by an American male executive. He was on the phone with some of his senior managers discussing a payment due from a client in the Middle East. In an effort to lighten an otherwise tense moment, he said, “Well, at least they are not trying to pay us with a harem.” When the words were barely out of his mouth, he realized how completely inappropriate the comment was, being both derogatory to people from the Middle East and to women. He immediately apologized to everyone. But he still felt badly and knew this was not the type of example he aspired to set for his team. I heard about a group of male friends who, after seeing the prevalence of #MeToo posts on social media, got together with their female friends to ask if any of them had said or done anything inappropriate or offensive to women in the past. If so, they wanted to apologize.

The more aware you are of the phenomenon of gender microaggression, the less likely you will be to make one. But if you do, don’t pretend it did not happen or invalidate the person’s feelings feelings by saying something like “don’t make this into a big deal” or “you are overacting.” And definitely don’t tell a woman you offended something like: “I thought you wanted to be one of the guys,” or “Well, if you don’t like it, you can always leave.”

Look at a woman’s eyes, face, and body language to determine if you have offended her. If you aren’t sure of her reaction, ask her, “Did I just offend you?” Acknowledge what you said or did right away. Look directly at the person you aggrieved, and apologize directly to her. Recognize that she feels insulted. Don’t just apologize about the situation, as high-profile men caught in shameful actions toward women often do. Apologize to her. You could say, “I am sorry...”

• “That came out wrong.”
• “What came out of my mouth was not at all what I intended.”
• “I realize that’s not at all funny.”
• “That was totally inappropriate.”
• “I have offended you, and that’s terrible.”

Furthermore, tell your female coworkers that you want to treat every woman (and person) with respect, but if you ever inadvertently offend her, you would greatly appreciate it if she would be direct with you and bring it to your attention.

Address bias, discrimination, and microaggression that you see or hear. Some airports and public places have posted signs that say, “If you see something, say something.” That’s the same advice to follow if you witness bias or discrimination. You are not a bystander. You are a witness. Don’t ignore a biased comment, demeaning language, or inappropriate humor used in person or sent digitally. Since companies can be held legally liable for harassment of their employees by external parties that they know about, you will need to also address actions taken by your clients, vendors, or suppliers against anyone at your company. It will not be easy, but it will be easier if you’ve thought about and prepared some possible responses in advance.

Your goals should be to stop the offender, if possible address their behavior, and express concern for the person who was inappropriately treated. Here are a few things you could say or do:

• At the very minimum, don’t laugh.
• Give the offender a disapproving look.
• Take a cue from young people who are fond of simply saying “Not cool.”
• Ask, “Are you saying … ?” Repeat verbatim what the person said, to allow them the opportunity to hear and recognize the inappropriateness of their remark.
• Ask them to explain. Say, “What do you mean by … ?” Insert verbatim what the person said so they will be forced to explain their comment.
• Appeal to their self-perception. Say, “I’ve always thought you were a fair person.”
• Stop the conversation. Say, “Don’t speak like that in front of me.”
• Stop the meeting and say, “We don’t speak/act like that here.”
• Ask, “Why do you think that’s funny?”
• Label the behavior. “That was ... [inappropriate; sexist; harassment]”
• Say, “Don’t be a jerk.”
• Ask, “Would you like someone to say this about your wife, daughter, mother?”
• Express concern for the person who was inappropriately treated.

Dr. Michael Kimmel, a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University, and the founder of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, explains that the role of men in these types of situations is not to rescue women but to challenge other men.⁸ Taking these types of actions or saying these things will be helpful to you in addressing bias or discrimination toward anyone on your team, not just those leveled against women.

I won’t minimize the difficulty of taking some of these actions or saying these things, especially when you are confronting other people’s microaggressions and if you know you’ve behaved somewhat similarly in the past. You may feel that calling out someone else’s behavior is hypocritical. You may worry that you will be ridiculed or ostracized by your peers. Yet you are capable of taking a stand, even if it’s tough. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s important. Start with one action you can take, and build from there. Every elimination of a microaggression or a macroaggression helps. Every micro affirmation makes a difference.

Summary

Eliminate practices or words that are barriers to women’s success to create a more inclusive environment.

Be mindful and vigilant. Have your emotional antenna up. Recognize and address the slightest signs of discrimination, bias, and microaggression. Ask for feedback.

Eliminating harmful behaviors and practices is a beginning, but it will only get us so far. It’s merely a “do no harm” baseline. But you can’t thrive only by removing or cutting. To build a high-performing team and get the results you want, you must EXPAND.