The stats don’t lie: Five steps to promote gender diversity in your business

Back in the early-2000s and pre-data-explosion, we didn’t have much evidence of the trillions of dollars women influenced in consumer decision making.

Even so, the fact men dominated 97% of creative director positions in advertising agencies made it seem a no-brainer to open the doors to my business in 2004 and create an agency that intentionally targets women audiences.

Not only did I become one of the ‘three percenters’ of women creative directors in advertising, but I also unknowingly joined another club: I was one of the teeny, tiny proportion of women agency owners to begin an entrepreneurial journey.

Since the explosion of data has hit the globe I can now, thankfully in 2018, show the scale, influence and different orientations of the woman buyer.

There is hard data available now to back up pretty much every argument for developing woman-centric marketing and communications strategies.

And research from the likes of McKinsey, Catalyst, big consulting groups and many others also show how diversity makes a tangible difference — and especially at the top levels of business.

Despite a mountain of solid, empirical evidence that just keeps growing, the lack of diversity in advertising still for the most part exists, along with a stubborn resistance to do anything meaningful about it.

But I guess change is hard for big legacy businesses and industries.

Surely, it’s a different picture in the venture capital world? Where investors are on the lookout for new, disruptive opportunities to cash in on emerging social needs?

I naively thought so, until some recent exposure to the world of pitching and capital raising disavowed me of that misconception.

It turns out it’s not that different to the advertising industry. There’s money being spent building businesses. But those businesses don’t belong to women.

Globally, women receive less than 10% of VC funding. In 2017 they received just 2%.

Look at the names of global agency groups out there — from the very beginning of Madison Avenue — you won’t find an agency with one woman’s name on it.

Yes, it’s good old bias at its best. And removing the potential for it has unearthed the fact it exists.

To eliminate bias, blind recruitment is on the rise, though it had been trialled back in the 70s and 80s in orchestras where research had proved this step alone makes it 50% more likely a woman would advance to the finals.

In 2017, Tropfest decided to make entries to the short film festival gender blind. The results were extraordinary, with an unprecedented number of women making it onto the honour board of short film finalists. To quantify this, the proportion of female finalists increased from about 5% to 50%.

So there’s no need to join the dots for anyone.

We have collected the data proof points.

‘Always talk the numbers’ and ‘always go straight to the back of the deck’ is the advice women who run agencies or have start-ups have been receiving when it comes to discussions on gender diversity. Don’t talk in ’emotion’, talk in ‘facts’.

Well, the fact is: wealth and capital do not end up in the hands of women.

And that begs the question: if the numbers are so important, why is this set of numbers, which unearth some incredibly compelling statistics, suddenly overlooked?

Five steps to promote gender diversity in your business

Step one

Create a high-level group of analysts from your business to look at all the numbers and break down all of the data points by gender. Both external data about industry norms and your own.

If you see 50/50 split, great. If you see a majority swinging in either direction, then go to step two.

Step two

How did you get to these percentages or proportions? What is the historic perspective?

How do you compare to the same industry figures, as well as some adjacent or similar industries?

It’s not a blame game, it’s about understanding the genesis, and fixing the pain points.

Step three 

Who needs to be trained, educated, coached and continuously inspired to make sure the evolution from this point looks different?

Who will ensure the studies showing how gender diversity will benefit your company’s profitability (in other words, more women in particular positions of leadership) are being acted upon and implemented?

Step four 

If you are training and offering leadership programs, how effective are they at uncovering biases and creating top-down transformation?

Which programs are visionary, actionable and progressive, and which are token or box-ticking?

Step five

Be the change. If only 2% of women are receiving funding, it’s not a ‘women’s problem’, it’s a culture problem.

Own it. Know it. Change it.

Bring in the experts to help you commit to this transformation and know they are not there to shame anyone. Just to help grow everyone.

The article was originally published on Women’s Agenda. Read the original article.

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