Finding the balance for better with Julia Gillard — Part 1
To mark International Women’s Day, we’re interviewing Julia Gillard, Former Australian PM and guest editor of our latest OBSERVE magazine that focuses on ‘Women, diversity and the path to greater inclusion’. The interview is in two parts, and this is the first.
The theme for International Women’s Day 2019 is #BalanceforBetter. In your opinion, why is balance better?
I think it’s great that balance for better is the theme this international women’s day because what it says to me is that we’re aiming for genuine equality.
This isn’t about an argument that one gender is better than the other. It’s really about a future which is better for men and better for women.
And I think that word ‘balance’ also takes us very quickly to the balancing work and family life agenda; and that’s so important, both for men and women and for the achievement of equality.
There’s still work to be done to get to a place where organisations are balanced and feel the benefits of equality. Which of these factors, in your opinion, would have the greatest impact for inclusion and diversity in organisations?
- Balancing the board.
- Flexible working.
- Mentoring.
- Increased engagement by leadership.
- A ‘He for She’ approach from men.
- Calling out inequality, in all its forms.
Here in London, I chair the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at Kings College. We’re a research institute, and I’d love to be able to say our research definitely shows that this is the factor that makes a difference. But, the truth is, it’s more complicated than that.
So it’s very hard to pick one factor, but if I needed to pick one, I would say ‘engagement from leaders’.
We’re never going to change organisations unless the people at the top — the board, the CEO, others in the C-suite — actually buy in.
And I think that in too many businesses there’s the sense that diversity, inclusion, gender — the HR department does that. But if we don’t get engagement at higher levels of leadership, then it will be impossible for the HR department to do the very profound things which need to be done to achieve equality at work.
Does the current debate about gender equality risk overshadowing other related minorities, and what is the best way to ensure a better dialogue to stop this happening?
There’s absolutely no doubt from the research and from the stories people will tell you from their personal experience that gender, class, race, sexuality, disability — all of these factors can compound the disadvantage in people’s lives.
And we would make an error if only said gender equality is the only form of discrimination in our societies, it most certainly is not.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not a noble cause to be trying to create a more equal society, but as we do so, we’ve got to be very thoughtful about how these different forms of discrimination intersect and make each other worse.
And one of the things we’ve been trying to do at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership is including diverse voices and life stories and to make sure that our research also looks at the other forms of disadvantage. Then, we can give the best possible advice to businesses and others that are trying to achieve true inclusion, true equality and really diverse teams.
In your years of experience, what is the most positive change you have seen, and what is the area where you think the most work remains to be done?
Of course, my life has been spent in politics, so you’ll have to excuse me if I use a political example.
The thing that made a big difference was setting an affirmative action target for our political party. If you look back in time, to the mid-nineteen-nineties, the two contending parties of government in Australia, the Labour party and the Conservatives, had around about the same percentage of women. About 14%, so not very good.
We, on the Labour side of politics, set a target and we are on our way to 50% men and women. I think that will be achieved in the election that will be called in a few short months in Australia. And in all those years in between, from the mid-nineteen-nineties, the Conservative side of politics has only managed to inch over 20%. There’s now a big debate within the Conservatives about whether they need to adopt a target.
So, I think that’s a long way of saying that what gets measured gets done if you set a target, if you know what you’re driving for, if there’s skin in the game and there are consequences unless you achieve it — then we will see change.
The issue of OBSERVE you’ve guest-edited focuses on ‘Women, diversity and the path to greater inclusion’. Women can be qualified for a job and still lose out to male candidates. Why do you think this is, and what can be done about it?
I think when a very qualified woman presents for a job and doesn’t get it, there’s probably a range of things going on.
One, perhaps, might be some unconscious bias by the selection panel. And, I don’t mean that as a criticism of individuals. I think we all wander around with deeply-seated stereotypes whispering at the back of our brain.
I mean, if you ask most people in Australia, in the United Kingdom, around the world, to close their eyes and imagine a business person they’d probably imagine a man in a suit.
So, you know, that sort of bias is there when selection panels are going about their work.
Second, I think the structure and the way selection processes are done can also not be of equal impact for women. So, making sure the selection process includes women on the panel, ensuring that there hasn’t been a screening out of women by the people looking at the CVs by saying ‘well, you know, let’s judge the women a little bit differently.’
And then I think there are some things about women’s behaviour that they perhaps have been socialised into, to not be as assertive in those kinds of situations to really sell themselves, and say ‘This is why I would be fantastic at this job’.
And we do know from the research that women do hold themselves back. If a job requires ten skills, a man will apply if he can do six of them. He’ll think to himself very confidently, ‘I’ll learn the other four on the job’. Whereas the woman won’t apply unless she can painstakingly tick all ten boxes.
So I do think that there is a balance to gender here, between structural change about how we do the selection and also some support for women to make sure they’re putting their best foot forward in those circumstances.
You can read the second part of this interview here, or see our video interview with Julia here.
To download a copy of OBSERVE 16, the Odgers Berndtson global magazine, guest-edited by Julia Gillard, click below.
Originally published at www.odgersberndtson.com.
