Is the bullshit wearing you down?

Some days the bullshit wears you down

I was going to start off by saying I’m annoyed today but actually, I’m pissed off. But not just today, it’s been building over the last week.

It started with a conversation with a friend. She was telling me about a meeting with the leadership team she is part of (as the only woman). During the meeting each of the male members expressed their concern that they shouldn’t be focusing on gender targets as part of their diversity and inclusion work.

She managed to bite her tongue (because if she didn’t she might be accused of being agressive right?) and asked each man in turn why they thought this, even though she works in a male dominated business and was sitting in a group of all men, so having gender targets seemed obvious. They didn’t seem to have any good answers so here are my thougths:

• They were being asked to do something hard

• They were being asked to do something they don’t know how to do and learn something they don’t want to learn

• They were being asked to do something that threatens their place in the world

Sound familiar?

Then I was talking to a consultant who was criticising another business because they were still just working on gender equality.

I get that diversity and inclusion is about more than just gender, and more than just male/female genders. The consultant went on to explain to me all the different forms of diversity including diversity of thought and how important this is.

Seeing as I’m the global head of diversity and inclusion for a large business, I’m pretty sure I’m across a good number of different types of diversity. I understand that to build inclusion you must take into account a wide range of diverse people and their needs and experiences. I also host a podcast called A Dog Called Diversity, where I speak to people who are a bit different in the world, so……

I didn’t need a consultant explaining to me the concept of diversity of thought. I did wonder if she had ever sat in a room of leaders of the same gender, same age, same nationality, with the same degrees and all wearing blue shirts and all agreeing with each other, before mounting her argument about diversity of thought.

But to say that this other organissation was still just working on gender equality, like that trend was over, and the problem was solved, was highly insulting. To start with if we can’t create equality in organisations for a group of people that represent 50% of the population, what chance do we have for other diverse groups that are underrepresented?

While I was ruminating on this writing this*, the latest Women in the Workplace report by McKinsey and Lean In came out. While this research is US based I think it provides a real litmus as to what’s happening in organizations outside the US too.

This year they found that while women’s representation improved across all levels of organisations (yay for progress), women of colour lost ground in representation at every level (boo for going backwards) and there is still a “broken rung” at the first step up to manager. Sigh.

In addition, women are even more burned out now than they were a year ago, (I am certainly feeling this) and burnout is escalating much faster among women than among men.

Despite this “women are rising to the moment as stronger leaders and taking on the extra work that comes with this: compared with men at the same level. Women are doing more to support their teams and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. They are also more likely to be allies to women of color. Yet this critical work is going unrecognized and unrewarded by most companies, and that has concerning implications.”

So yes some organisations might be just working on gender and some consultants won’t be getting any work from me.

*code for getting myself well and truly worked up