One of the things I love about LinkedIn blogging is that it helps you spread the word far further. And if you’re lucky enough to tap into the zeitgeist it can really create momentum.

My mission is to help women to play a much bigger game – change the world if you will – and do so with big ideas, big vision and big, audacious bucket loads of confidence. Sometimes that means talking about and/or removing challenges in the system.

A pet peeve for me is when a man calls a woman a name (such as “nag”) to keep her in her place. Usually it’s in a scenario where he is resisting change that the woman is trying to influence.

So there I was on a flight and the dreaded N word came up in conversation between two well dressed businessmen sitting next to me. The conversation went something like this …..

“Now Roger, he’s a good bloke”

“And Brian, he’s great too”

“But Felicity, she is such a nag”

“All Roger, Brian and I want to do is grow, grow grow. But Felicity just doesn’t get it. She keeps putting the brakes on, wanting us to check and double check things. It’s draining. I wish she’d get on board more”.

It turns out that Felicity was indeed the Head of Compliance in that particular organisation. She was also one of few women on the Executive Leadership Team.

INCLUSIVE VS EXCLUSIVE

If organisations do indeed want more long term sustainability and relevance, then diversity is a key driver with inclusion being the mechanism that unlocks the benefits that diversity has to offer.

When we resist the differences or diverse perspectives that diversity offers with exclusion tactics such as name calling, pigeon holing and belittling, its simply going to take much longer. Women and other segments of our population will be far more likely to pick up their bat and ball and go elsewhere.

When we work together to embrace diverse perspectives, valuing all sides of the equation (in this instance the desire to grow, grow grow, with the need for checks and balances that good corporate governance brings even if it’s from a woman!) the organisation will definitely reap the rewards of being not only a better place to work, but long term growth and financial success.

NAME CALLING IS CHEAP

Coincidentally, I’d just seen a campaign from South Africa highlighting a range of different criticisms men make about professional women more broadly.

The campaign is clever and draws attention to the stereotype and bias still really prevalent

IT’S ALMOST 2019

One of the reasons I was so disappointed was the lack of awareness in these two well dressed middle aged businessmen who were heading up relatively well known Australian businesses. The lack of awareness of bias, the subtext of the conversation. I’m guessing that in their organisations the gender equity argument is given lip service, but growth for growth’s sake is still the critical driver.