Women Deserve Lower Pay?

On my way to London on the train, I was surprised to hear a group of young women talking about executive pay - and in particular this BBC story about women being paid half the bonuses of men.

Trains to London are fairly crowded - so leaning across the aisle, I asked them if they'd mind sharing their thoughts about 'why'.....

The girls in question were 15 years old, and after realising that I was asking them for some serious feedback, and then some discussion they decided that women generally received lower bonuses because they "are more likely to take time off work to have children." 

As you might imagine this brought some attention from others on the train (not an easy task during commuter runs - most try to insulate themselves from the world).

I pointed out that whilst that is undoubtedly true, this should only delay a career by the number of weeks/months/years taken out - and therefore should have no effect at all on male:female bonus awards. I asked did they have any other ideas.

"Maybe they are more likely to need to leave work early if there's a problem with a child."  

Inside my head I was picturing myself reciting this exchange to a government inquiry.

I made the observation that either parent can perform that duty - and that most companies understand the occasional needs of family, and do their best to accommodate it. 

Then I asked them about the women leaders they knew. No names were forthcoming. Head of Yahoo? I asked. No. What about IBM? No. Facebook? No.

For once I was lost for words. These girls were smart, from a good school and sat discussing executive pay. But none had heard of Marissa Mayer, Ginni Rometty or Sheryl Sandberg.

I thanked them for their time, wrote down "Lean In - Sheryl Sandberg" on a piece of paper and handed it over with a suggestion to give it a go.

I'd love to know who students look to and admire, or aspire to be these days. At 15 years old, I wanted to be Gene Kranz, or Bob Crippen, or John Young. I thought that Steve Furber, Geoff Crammond and David Braben were amazing, and Michael J Fox in "Secret of My Success" was a genius. In school we learned about the economists, politicians and thought leaders of the day - surely that still happens?


I sincerely believe that we have a problem in our education system, and this issue needs to be addressed starting there. I plan to ask some of our local schools if they teach diversity in the classroom....watch this space.

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One more thing, I'm a numbers junkie. I love analysis (see here for examples), and two of my favourite quotes are these:

"There are lies, damned lies and statistics" - Unknown

"In God we trust; everyone else bring data" - W. Edwards Deming

The problems these two quotes cause with research (especially in this field) is dramatic. No two people are alike - so how can you possibly compare compensation across diverse groups? What other factors are in play?

But I did manage to obtain some data to investigate myself - and the facts were damning. No matter which way I cut the information, men were paid more (on average) than women. Same roles, experience, tenure, geographic location, ethnicity - I found that with very few exceptions men get paid more than women. Not good.

This needs to be fixed - and it needs to start with setting expectations in our schools and end with proper legislation that forces companies to review and (if necessary) change  their processes.

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Sexist Misogynistic Over Opinionated Dictators

It's a hot topic, this diversity stuff. Even my evenings with friends can get dominated by the subject - and I'm beginning to think that there may be an unhealthy obsession with this in the workplace, despite my opinion that diversity is critical to success. 

People who think the same way cannot innovate together - my eldest son said to me recently that the problem with adults is they've forgotten how to dream, and don't question 'facts' enough. (Which made me think we should have some under 16's as consultants, but that's a blog for another day)

I spent a day in Oxford this week with some friends, and we talked a lot about this - specifically focussing on perceived sexism both inside and outside the workplace. I say perceived because we found than by engaging those around us to join in the conversation we discovered several different viewpoints.

Here's a simplistic one.  I feel it's right to hold the door open for a lady - but a short discussion revealed that I'll typically always open the door for the person behind me - regardless of gender. Nothing to do with male/female, just good manners.

Not one person we spoke to thought there was anything wrong with giving up a seat on a train for another person who you felt needed it more than you. An elderly gentleman, someone on crutches and yes, in almost all cases the mixed groups around us felt it was OK to give up your seat to a lady.

Thankfully 100% agreed that if that lady was pregnant, it was the duty of any passenger (male or female) to give over their seat. 

We concluded that it was nothing to do with sexism, and all to do with manners. Some people have different values, dependent on upbringing, age and culture.


Guess what? It's the same in the workplace - people are people. Everyone is different, and creating a policy conformist playbook, an extremist HR policy, or a fixed target is the wrong way to ensure that diversity is valued.

Recently I looked at the perceived culture fit of men vs women. Just over 400 managers were assessed by their teams on a number of behaviours (3500+ respondents). Whilst individuals had dramatically different results, when viewed together the conclusion can only be that people are people regardless of gender (or orientation, or race for that matter).

If your company has a high proportion of sexist misogynistic over opinionated dictators, then it's unlikely a policy of diversity inclusion is going to change the underlying environment.

Managers (and companies) with a short sighted view of diverse opinion will struggle with diversity programs. If you're looking for a place to start addressing this issue, make sure that a hidden bias education offering is available in your organisation. An excellent article on this subject can be found here,

The fact remains that appreciating diverse opinion is one of the most effective catalysts for change, and a diverse workforce under good leadership will always succeed in attracting better talent and delivering better results.

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Diversity Programs

I read a great article this week from Ngaire Moyes - What Do Women Want @ Work.  I paticularly loved the accompanying infographic, and the more I looked at it - the more I wondered about what the 'Men' version would look like.

I'd love to see the same survey for men, but here are my answers:

Success at work means finding the right balance between work and personal life.

I do think my career has been a success so far.

I do think you can have it all - a fullfillung career, relationship and children. 

I didn't slow down my career as soon as I had children. 

I work in a fantastic company which totally support flexibility and family.

Career path is the biggest challenge affecting my career.

I am aware that my physical appearance makes an impression, but it has not had a major impact on my career.

That means I answered in the way of most women on the survey. Which I suspect would be the same for most people.

There is absolutely no doubt that there are too few women in senior positions in most companies and most industries - there are plenty of studies that back that up. But I'm honestly not sure that it's all to do with sexism in the workplace.

Out of curiosity, I ran a quick spot check on my own sexism (or lack of) credentials:

46% of the people I follow on Twitter are women, 39% of those following me are too. Around 70% of the people who have worked directly for me in the last ten years have been women, and I've spent slightly less than half of my career working for a woman. I cannot imagine having even half the talent of my amazing Wife.

What's missing in the workplace is an appreciation for diversity in all forms. Employing in own image is frequent. Interviewing from a pool of talent that all conforms to expectation, unconscious prejudice - it's all common, and it exaggerates the problem.

At a recent round table, someone asked another delegate to clarify what they meant by a diversity program. They started to explain that it includes women, racial minorities, lesbian, gay,  those with disabilities.....and so on. What they were trying to say was "anything but straight white men." 

(This doesn't always hold true, there are various functions, that are traditionally female dominated and therefore benefit from the reverse)

Does this mean that we should employ positive discrimination in the workplace? There's probably no choice, although some are loathe to admit it. But it would be better to educate leaders and managers in the immense value of having a diverse number of opinions and viewpoints around the table - learning that simple fact should be the first move in any diversity program, but it involves changing a seriously embedded mindset.

Successful culture transformation programs take diversity into account early in the process, because appreciating diverse opinion is one of the most effective catalysts for change. 

Take the time to look at the team structures in your company. If everyone looks, acts and thinks the same, you probably won't be successful for long. 


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