With the massive numbers of new people entering the industry, it is very popular to talk about how the new generation looks very different from the previous demographic bulge. An implicit assumption is that the composition of the leadership will also change and will reflect the new population.

However, past history shows that this is not a good assumption.

My general impression was that things were getting a lot better for women. When I attend a meeting and there are women present, for me it represents huge progress. Not so, it turns out, for the younger generations.

Recently, I was surprised when a female, 40-ish middle manager expressed disappointment with the lack of visible diversity in top ranks. I saw her as an example of how much opportunities for women have improved, but she coupled the scarcity of top management role models with what she perceived to be high attrition for women. From her perspective, when women don’t see women in upper management, they start looking for more promising fields. Furthermore, she felt that it was relatively futile to push to hire more women without solving the retention and advancement issues.

About the same time, I ran into the same perspectives from African-Americans and Hispanics. Again, I heard the frustration over advancement and retention spilling over into hiring issues from the very people I viewed as representing success — managers of color! Clearly, we need to take a more holistic approach to hiring, retaining and advancing women and under-represented minorities.

Next, during a visit to the campus of one of the US top universities, I heard a very interesting story. My local hosts described how, when several years earlier it was time to pick a new university president, the retiring president decreed that the list of candidates to replace him had to be half male, half female and a quarter minority. Thus, if the search committee found another promising male candidate, it either had to dump a man or add another woman. The final four candidates were two men and two women, from which a highly qualified woman was selected.

The stipulation that 25% of the list of candidates be under-represented minorities is consistent with the US census data. As of July 1, 2003, Hispanics constitute 13.7% of the nation’s population (not including the 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico) and are the US’s largest ethnic minority. 12.9% of US residents describe themselves as African-American or African-American in combination with one or more other races.

Wow, I thought. I’d never heard that story of the list requirements before. I wondered why not and decided to check things out on the Web.

What I found was that university officials had gone to considerable length to hide their selection process. Obviously, they were ashamed of what they had done, even though the process had produced a strong, highly qualified new university president.

Here are a few selected announcements on how this woman was chosen:

  • “The [name omitted]’s board of trustees, said that in [name omitted], they had chosen the best candidate for the job with little regard to sex.”
  • “The selection was ‘gender-blind,’ and the ‘best person’ just happened to be a woman.”
  • “[Name omitted] has publicly examined its bias against women in the past, acknowledging that it has discriminated against female faculty in areas such as pay and setting a goal for gender equity. During [name omitted] ‘s 14 years as president, the number of female professors [increased to 1.76 times] what it was when he started, but women still make up only 8% of [name omitted]’s faculty.”
Prior to seeing how hard this group of university professionals worked to cover their tracks, I was going to use them as an exemplary role model of how to make progress. Where was their academic courage and willingness to take a stand for what they think is right? Talk about being mealy mouthed and afraid to have their processes exposed to the light of day! Perhaps the story is only leaking out now that the woman had proven herself worthy of the role.

I wish industry executives would have enough courage to follow this approach, even if they, like academia, feel that they have to hide the process. Companies could be amazed at the talent they are overlooking if they just used a process like this university’s to expand their field of view.

About a decade or so ago, companies began the process of posting internal job opportunities and allowing employees to apply. This appeared to raise the glass ceiling to a new level — the top of the salary grades for which jobs are posted. Women and minorities, who might otherwise have been innocently overlooked, had the opportunity to place themselves into the field of view. When the qualifications of these people were scrutinized, they were found adequate. Diversity has flourished through the middle management levels, so I — unlike younger women and minorities — perceived great progress being made.

Progress appears to be stalled at the true executive levels, where job postings no longer apply and where lists are made and culled behind closed doors. What would happen if all executive slots were filled by a selection process that involved building a list with an equal number of men and women and 25% minorities? Would being required to create a new type of list open the eyes of the old guard to talent they just haven’t been able to recognize? What does industry have to lose?

Comments