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Why Women Mean Business…or How to convince your senior executive team to pay more attention to gender issues…. |
| By:Kerrie Halmi on Thu 24 Jul 2008 5:48 PM under Business, Corporate culture, Management |
“Why Women Mean Business” is the title of a must-read book for all executives and management. Written by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland in 2008, it lays out a comprehensive case for why organizations need to bring more women into their leadership ranks. Increasing women’s success in Corporate America has been a passion of mine for many years now and this is the best book I have read that clearly gives the business reasons for gender equality and gives specific ways to achieve it. Upfront, this book states that it is not an “us versus them” approach—that has not and will not work.
“Forget China, India and the internet: economic growth is driven by women” The Economist, 12 April 2006.
The book introduces a term called “Womenomics” that explains the economic reasons why companies need to pay attention to gender. Incidentally, these are the same reasons I’ve been quoting in my talks on women in business for some time. It’s great to see them confirmed.
Economic motives for making gender a top priority:
1. The fierce competition for talented people.
2. The importance of getting the right leadership team. (A US study of the Fortune 500 in 2004 found that companies with the highest proportion of women on their senior teams significantly outperformed those with the lowest proportion on both return on equity and total shareholder return (Catalyst, 2004) This finding has been backed up by a study of Fortune 500 boards in 2007 (Catalyst) and McKinsey research (2007) into companies in Europe, America and Asia.)
3. Women represent half the market—and more. Women make 80% of consumer purchasing decisions in America. Nissan found that women directly make or influence 2/3 of car purchases in Japan. They conducted surveys that revealed that 80% of women buyers would prefer to have women salespeople in the showrooms. As would 50% of men. However, women represent only 10% of the Nissan salespeople in Japan.
In my next article, I’ll give more information on advice this book gives on making your organization more “bi-lingual”, as it pertains to gender. Stay tuned!
