People will take for granted the many differences between men and women: women are not good at negotiating, lack self-confidence, are too risk-averse, and cannot devote themselves to work.
In fact, these concepts have little scientific support. Meta-analysis shows that the differences between the two sexes are not as big as popular beliefs are in terms of hobbies, attitudes and skills. And these differences do not stem from gender characteristics, but from organizational structure, company practices, and different interaction modes for gender positioning.
The system creates different experiences for both genders. When faced with different environments, people react differently, not because of their gender, but because of their circumstances.
Three false popular ideas
We have all heard from the media and companies that women lack the willingness or ability to negotiate; they are not confident enough; and they lack the adventurous spirit. With the popularity of this concept, these shortcomings have become the reason why women are inferior to men.
For decades, gender differences in these three directions have attracted a lot of research, and sociologists have therefore conducted meta-analysis. Meta-analysis can determine whether there are gender differences in all studies, and if so, what is the size of the difference.
Equally important, meta-analysis can also reflect the environment where gender differences are more likely to occur. The overall results of the study are clear: the gender differences in any workplace stem from the environment.
Take negotiation as an example. Time and time again, we heard that women are not good at negotiating. They are “too easy” to give in, “too nice people” or “too willing to cooperate.” But the research results are quite the opposite.
Jens Mazei and colleagues recently analyzed more than 100 studies, investigating whether the results of the debate between the two sexes are different, and found that the difference between genders in the debate is negligible.
Men have a slight advantage in the debate only when they are speaking for themselves and when their interests or opportunities are highly vague. In compulsory training exercises, the difference will be great only when the negotiator lacks experience or is forced to participate in the negotiation.
But this kind of situation is very rare, even if it happens, statisticians will think that the gender difference is not big. As for women to collaborate more easily than men, the study by Daniel Balliet and his colleagues refutes this.
The notion that women lack self-confidence is another fallacy. This kind of statement often appears in situations where women speak less at meetings, or when women are not fully sure that they will not actively propose promotions.
But the study did not find that women are less confident than men. Kristen Kling and colleagues analyzed more than 200 studies and found that significant gender differences only occur during adolescence; once they are over 23 years old, the differences are negligible.
What about adventurous spirit? Are women really more conservative than men? Although people still disagree on whether risk avoidance is an advantage or a disadvantage, many people believe this.
Those who agree is the advantage believe that women are less likely to be involved in the machismo and bravado, so many unnecessary risks can be avoided.
As one frequently heard comment on the overthrow of Lehman Brothers: “If Lehman Brothers is replaced by Lehman Sisters, the financial crisis will not happen.” The reason for the disadvantage is that women are considered too cautious. Therefore, they are reluctant to invest in high-risk, high-potential returns.
But research still does not support any of these stereotypes. Similar to the debate, there is very little gender difference in taking risks, and it depends on the environment.
In the meta-analysis conducted by James Byrnes and colleagues, the biggest difference comes from situations that rarely occur in most organizations (such as involving people in random games).
Similarly, Peggy Dwyer and colleagues studied the latest, riskiest and largest investment decisions made by nearly 2,000 mutual fund investors and found that the gender gap is very small.
More importantly, when the investment expertise of investors is added to the formula, the gender gap almost disappears. This shows that the level of information mastery, not risk propensity, is the root cause of the small gender differences.
In short, although the reasons why women are not as successful as men are repeated and mentioned over and over again, a large amount of evidence contradicts these popular myths.
A more reasonable explanation
The growth and success of employees in the workplace depends in part on the opportunities and treatment they receive. When women fail to “step forward” and seek development opportunities, they can easily be mistaken for lack of self-confidence, not because they lack relevant information.
Julie’s experience is an example. She is currently the CEO of a large investment fund. When she learned that a younger male colleague had jumped to a vacancy she had never even heard of, Julie left the company where she had worked for 15 years.
When she announced that she was leaving and told the boss why, the boss was surprised. He told Julie that if he realized that she wanted to be promoted, he would be very willing to help her get this position.
But because she did not express this willingness, he thought that Julie lacked confidence in her ability to fill the vacancy.
How people react to the mistakes or failures of others also affects their ability to grow and succeed. Several studies have shown that because women’s every move is amplified compared to their male colleagues, their mistakes and failures will be scrutinized or punished more strictly.
More stringent requirements can make people reluctant to speak in meetings, especially if they feel that there is no one to support them. Once women do not speak actively, they will be considered not confident enough in their own ideas.
Another classic example comes from a biotechnology company. Department leaders found that their female colleagues are highly skilled research scientists, but they are far less active than men in department meetings, but in one-on-one conversations, female colleagues can often offer many insights.
What these leaders failed to discover was that when women spoke at the meeting, their views were quickly rejected or ignored because of a slight flaw, and they were not noticed until other male colleagues re-expressed them.
On the contrary, if the opinions of male colleagues are flawed, people tend to ignore the flaws and focus only on the valuable parts. Therefore, before sharing opinions, women must ensure that their opinions are 110% perfect.
In an environment where “wiseness” decides everything, it is better to remain silent than to frequently raise opinions and be ignored repeatedly.
Improve gender inequality
One problem caused by gender differences is that companies will invest resources to “fix” women, which means that women will lose a lot of what they need and what every employee deserves—allowing them to reach their potential and maximize Possible environment for success.
To improve gender equality in the company, managers need to take a deeper approach, get rid of cliches, understand women’s experience in the workplace in a way of verification, and create an environment that increases the probability of women’s success. It can be done in the following four steps.
1.Challenge stereotypes. A consulting company we worked with recruited a large number of female talents in junior positions, but encountered bottlenecks in the promotion of female employees.
The explanation from superiors was that women lacked competitiveness, lacked ambition, or lacked the confidence necessary to excel in their careers. But for Sara, the regional chief, these statements are inaccurate.
Because many of the female employees she manages are consistent with their promotion. She did not immediately accept the explanation from her colleague and became curious about it.
2.Find a reasonable other explanation. Sara studied the success factors for women in her area and found that they received more practical training and received more attention from higher authorities than women in other regions.
This finding shows that the problem is not that women have any defects, but that they have different channels to promote self-confidence and success.
3.Change the environment and evaluate the results. Once the company has found a more reasonable explanation, it can make corresponding changes and then test whether performance has improved.
Two examples from a mid-market private equity firm illustrate this step. These two examples try to solve an old problem that has lasted for 10 years: the promotion and retention rate of white women and people of color in the company is much lower than its recruitment rate.
The protagonist of the first example is Elaine, a senior Asian American consultant. She wanted to improve her financing skills, so she applied to partner David to participate in his next project.
David invited her to lunch, but Elaine did not perform well. She is not decisive and too cautious. David didn’t want her to join the team, but later changed his mind. Partners often have doubts about their ability to discover and cultivate talents, especially not good at judging consultants who are quite different from them.
He decided to do an experiment: Invite Elaine to join the team and devote energy to training her like a potential star employee. David introduced Elaine to someone in the industry, told the banks that Elaine would be responsible for financing, and taught her many tips, while giving her enough feedback and guidance to help her avoid possible traps.
Elaine did not let him down. In fact, her performance was comparable to that of star employees. David, the silent female disciple, showed an amazing ability to understand customers and shared innovative ideas in project financing.
The protagonist in the second example is Ned. Joan, a newly hired MBA on his team, gave him a headache. When Joan was on the phone with the management, she couldn’t insist on his proposition.
At first, Ned thought that Joan was just lacking self-confidence, but then he realized that he might be gender-biased and made introspection. Ned realized that he did not help Joan to participate in the meeting better, and even increased difficulties, such as frequently speaking for her.
He talked to Joan about this issue. Joan admits that she is afraid of making mistakes, and thinks that if she speaks, she must make a very good point. Ned is also aware of this—Joan is worried about making mistakes or failing to bring more value to the dialogue, which is why Ned will do it for him.
After reflection, Ned felt that Joan’s difficulties were not so serious, and he often had similar experiences himself. In the next few calls, they prepared the agenda in advance and discussed the part where Joan led the speech. After the call, Ned will also make suggestions to Joan.
Now Joan has become a trusted subordinate of Ned; at the same time, Joan has also increased his self-confidence, learned to take risks and grow from mistakes.
4. Promote continuous learning. Both David and Ned realized that they were susceptible to prejudices and concluded early; doing so would cause the company to lose key talent. In addition, they have personally experienced the opportunities for women to challenge stereotypes and actively change conditions.
The harvest of these small-scale experiments is long-term. Company partners now meet regularly to discuss their experiences. They regard it as their responsibility to question and test gender stereotypes. In the end, the cliches about women’s limited abilities were replaced by new ideas about how the company can support all employees equally.
The four steps we have given are consistent with the results of research on difficult issues such as gender and race: when managers put themselves in a problem-solving perspective instead of a problem-generating perspective, the response will be more positive.
The solution to women’s lack of aggressiveness is not to change women or their superiors, but to change the environment that dwarfs women and increases gender bias.
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