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|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

I like working with women.

When I treat men as equals and respect them as professionals, it’s routine and unnoticed. When I work with women and treat them the same way, a common response is relief, perhaps appreciation, and usually cooperation.

This is, of course, a gross generality. The worst corporate backstabber I ever ran afoul of was a woman. Or, rather, the best — she was a very talented backstabber.

Two recent Advice Lines came from women who have experienced sexism in the workplace throughout their successful careers (“Does gender matter?” 4/12/2008 and “Gender does matter, and it doesn’t matter,” 4/30/2008).

As usual, most of the comments posted in response were interesting, relevant, and perceptive. Then there were the other kind — the ones that worried most about “reverse sexism” and “playing the gender card.”

It is true that in some companies and some situations, less competent women are promoted over more competent men. In my experience it’s more common that men assume a woman has achieved her position because of reverse sexism … or worse … and not because she is very good at her job.

Sexism has always been a more difficult subject than racism. Here’s how far we’ve come when it comes to race: When, in 1967, Sidney Poitier dated a white woman in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the controversy was huge and enduring. When, in 1998 … just thirty years later … Wesley Snipes dated a white woman in U.S. Marshals, nobody even noticed.

Yes, there are still some antediluvians who think African Americans are genetically inferior. There are also some who think the earth is flat. (A different question for a different time: Whether American society continues to suffer the social residues of past racism. It does, creating serious challenges for us all.)

In 1967, many men considered feminism to be disturbing and unnatural. Forty years later this has changed much less. Example: Last year, when MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson said of Hillary Clinton, “[T]here’s just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary … I cross my legs involuntarily every time she comes on the air,” it barely created a stir.

Had he made an equivalent comment about Barack Obama (what would it be? Perhaps, “His ties look like gang colors — they make me want to hand over my wallet,”) it’s safe to say it wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

Sexism is a more difficult subject than racism for several reasons, among them:

  • The racial differences between people are, almost literally, skin deep and little more. The gender differences between people are inescapably profound and extend far beyond both appearance and anatomy.
  • Women have babies. Men don’t. So while it is possible to insist that society treat people of different ethnicities exactly the same, the same insistence applied to men and women isn’t entirely meaningful.
  • Women are more likely to take time away from their careers while their children are young than men. As a result, the statistical demonstration of sexism is a more complex task than the statistical demonstration of racism.
  • Amateur biologists commonly engage in junk science, overstating the cognitive and behavioral impacts of estrogen and testosterone, based on third-hand accounts of research whose interpretation is not yet certain.

As a manager, start by paying attention to what the women actually said in Advice Line. Two snapshots:

“My problem is, I’m not “one of the boys,” and don’t want to be one of the boys. Throughout my career, though, being one of the boys has been at least as important as my actual performance.”

And,

“Most male managers are not sexist, at least not consciously. There are many, however, who do discriminate without even realizing it. The interesting or prestigious project usually goes to a male employee who is most like the manager, or plays golf with the manager …”

I’ll add to this a sadly common experience for women: The boss invites his cronies, including many direct reports, to a local strip joint. Anyone is welcome to join them, of course.

This leaves the women with no good choices. They either don’t join the guys, which increases the extent to which they are outsiders; they do, which gives their tacit approval and which some men might interpret as an invitation to make a pass; or they complain, which creates friction, tension, and hostility.

Why is this okay?

Leaders are responsible for building team identity.

Those who equate a sense of team identity with “being one of the boys” do discriminate against those who aren’t boys.

By definition.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Way back when, before the World Wide Web, the Internet was a small, close community. It was self-policing; as much as any other technique the small-town punishment of disapproving looks took care of most problems.

As the Internet grew, and as more and more money entered the picture, self-policing stopped being effective. Formal controls became important.

Before then, when the population of the American West was small, cattlemen grazed their cattle wherever they found good forage … as did sheep ranchers. As the population grew, so did the need for fences. And sheriffs.

When populations are small and “six degrees of separation” is usually six, and always five degrees more than anyone needs to meet anyone else, formal regulations and controls serve no useful purpose.

In Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), Jared Diamond analyzed the correlation between the size of a society and its governance. Translated into corporate terms, and with some allowances for the differences between societies and businesses, it comes out more or less as the table shows: As companies grow from boutique to large enterprises, governance, administration and conflict resolution all become more formal and less flexible. This need for more formality — for shifting from relationship-driven decision-making to rule-driven decision-making — happens because of how hard it is to establish mutual trust between strangers.OrgSize

In response to the series of columns I wrote earlier this year on this subject, and in particular on PC lockdown and related policies, my friend and client Dave Kaiser raised this question:

You give freedom to your best team members who are taking the Blackberries around and doing what is needed to get the job done. Clock punching Jim has never worked an extra minute in his entire life. He starts complaining because he isn’t granted the same rights. You explain it to Jim and he gives you the argument that this isn’t fair — that you have to treat everyone the same.

Well, no you don’t. Or else, yes you do, if that’s your corporation’s style, which, as companies grow, becomes increasingly likely. Resist the trend. Treating people fairly isn’t the same as treating them the same.

Other than high-risk situations, giving employees the benefit of the doubt is a good idea. If a Blackberry should be useful and an effectiveness enhancer, enhance away.

Giving the benefit of the doubt isn’t the same as ignoring a large pile of evidence. If you’ve worked with Clock-Punching Jim long enough to know he considers a Blackberry to be an entitlement that accompanies employment, and can predict its primary value will be to let Jim ostentatiously ignore team discussions in order to click away … don’t give him one.

When he complains you aren’t being fair, reply that of course you’re being fair. You issue Blackberries to every employee who has demonstrated through performance that it’s a good business investment. He, on the other hand, has demonstrated an uncanny ability to work at exactly the level you define as Just Barely Good Enough. In your judgment, a Blackberry for him would not be a prudent business investment.

That’s the harsh approach, and while, over a barley pop or two, I pretend to enjoy this way of dealing with substandard employees, in fact I don’t recommend it, nor do I practice it myself.

There are reasons people are the way they are. For the most part, their attitudes and behaviors are shaped by the expectations they’ve developed based on their life experiences. If Jim is a clock puncher, there’s a reason for it. This doesn’t mean you can always overcome such things. It does mean sarcasm when discussing employee performance is like cake frosting — tasty and satisfying for a moment or two, but not nutritious and helpful in the long run.

So conduct the more productive version of the conversation instead. You issue Blackberries to every employee who has demonstrated by way of performance that it’s a good business investment. Those are also the employees who receive the larger raises, bonuses, and promotions, and for the exact same reasons.

Then express your confidence in his abilities, explain your concerns about his apparent lack of motivation, and let him know that what happens next is up to him. If he decides to work to his potential you’ll help him take his career as far as it can go. If he has no interest in doing more than he has to, he’ll keep his job, but you won’t invest a lot of time and energy in him.

Or a Blackberry.

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