Thriving As A Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry: Andrea Simon of Simon Associates Management Consultants On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male Dominated Industry

An Interview With Ming Zhao

Establishing my presence when I was usually the “only” woman in the room. Whether it was a staff meeting, a board meeting, or a client meeting, I was often the only woman there, regardless of my position. The times were beginning to change as banking recruited more women at senior levels. And in healthcare, many women were moving into management and senior positions. But, all-to-often, I was it! I wasn’t quite the “hat girl” where they gave me their coats to hang up or their coffee to clean up, but the men felt awkward about doing what they thought was a woman’s job. I had to help them feel comfortable letting me be part of their team as a highly competent, albeit female, teammate.

In the United States in 2022, fields such as Aircraft piloting, Agriculture, Architecture, Construction, Finance, and Information technology, are still male-dominated industries. For a woman who is working in a male-dominated environment, what exactly does it take to thrive and succeed? In this interview series we are talking to successful women who work in a Male-Dominated Industry who can share their stories and experiences about navigating work and life as a strong woman in a male dominated industry. As a part of this series we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Andrea “Andi” Simon.

ANDREA “Andi” SIMON Ph.D., CEO of Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC), is an international leader in the growing field of corporate anthropology, an Axiom Bronze Best Business Book of 2017 winning author of On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, and a major futurist podcast producer for On the Brink with Andi Simon. Andi’s latest book, Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business, released in 2021, was just awarded the 2022 Axiom Bronze Best Business Book in the Women in Business category. A culture change expert, and an explorer at heart, she is the architect of a global thought leadership platform that blends academic perspectives, depth and breadth of business experience, new-media expertise, and proven success in changing organizations and the people who are the key to their success.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

I grew up outside of New York City. My family was deeply involved in a multi-generational retail business in Manhattan, NY. As a child, I vividly remember learning about the company from my parents and grandmother. I would come into the store as a 5-year-old, head to the basement, and work with the team putting shirts on hangers and helping to organize merchandise on shelves. Little did I know I was being groomed for the business. Often, I went into the market with my mother and grandmother to learn the skills of merchandisers. I watched them buy everything from women’s dresses to men’s ties. My father would typically handle the electronics and the shoes. Gender stereotypes were being lived, not preached. As I watched my grandmother manage the cash at the end of the day and listened to our dinner conversations, I learned who did what and how men and women thought and acted.

Yet, when it came time to return from college to expand my responsibilities in the business, I announced that I had discovered anthropology and was going to pursue a doctorate with an academic career. While my family certainly supported my choice, they were dumbfounded. My grandmother was particularly upset. They quickly realized that the next generation, me, would not take over the business as planned.

My pathway as an academic anthropologist was just beginning, but the business world I had grown up in was an integral part of who I was. It did not surprise my husband when I applied my academic interests to the business world and shifted my focus after a decade in academia.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

I discovered anthropology as an undergraduate at Pennsylvania State University. I transferred to Columbia University in New York to complete my undergraduate courses in the field and then went for my Ph.D. at the City University of New York (CUNY). Many of the foremost thinkers in anthropology were developing a new program at CUNY, precisely the type of “start-up” I enjoyed.

As I finished my doctoral research and received my degree, I was already a professor at Ramapo College (now University) in New Jersey, building an American Studies and Anthropology program. It was an interdisciplinary institution trying to bridge the artificial divisions between departments that had characterized academia forever. Its concept was sound, but its students were returning Viet Nam veterans who needed and wanted a college degree to begin their careers. The disconnect was profound.

After I got that sacred status of “tenure,” I met several Citibank executives at a cocktail party early in 1980. My husband was an executive at Citibank during its innovative years of launching ATMs and bringing into the market bank-by-personal computer systems. I am a big believer in serendipity, and out of that cocktail party came an invitation to join Citibank as a consultant. Several individuals wanted to see how I could help them change their organization as it emerged from its highly regulated period to one that was deregulating. I took a leave from the college and turned away from my tenure and the comfort of the position. Instead, I ventured into financial services to help organizations and their staff adapt to fast-changing times.

My career soared for twenty years as I became an executive in two banks and two hospitals before launching my consulting business in 2002. When I launched my business, I created my new brand identity as a “corporate anthropologist that helps companies change.” Running my own business, writing two successful, award-winning books, launching a high-profile podcast, conducting over 500 workshops, and managing dozens of clients have allowed me to expand my career in ways well designed for my interests and expertise. My timing was great — closely aligned with the needs of the fast-changing market space evolving over the last two decades.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Since I have always chosen opportunities where the business was broken, stuck, stalled, or needed new ideas and leadership, I signed onto roles expecting one job and discovering another. To illustrate, recruited by a commercial bank (a division of a large regional bank at the time) to become their executive vice president, I thought it would be essentially the same as what I had been doing in my position as a senior vice president at a savings bank. I accepted the position and changed my corporate office.

I quickly discovered that this commercial bank was a total operational mess. I could not believe the state in which it was operating. Commercial loans were in the rooms above the “Billy’s Burp and Slurp” bar and still recorded on yellow legal paper. Check processing was archaic. The bank had just acquired a branch from another bank without the processes to move over the accounts properly. We had thousands of checks in suspense, awaiting the reconciliation of these accounts. At one gathering, a branch manager asked me to get more filing cabinets for storing overdue checking accounts. I asked, “why do you store the statements in the vault?” The answer is, “well, we have overdraft protection, but we still keep their checks and statements at the bank until the customer reconciles the checking accounts.” That was a memorable conversation. The tellers typically took two weeks to train and two weeks to steal.

When you asked for my most exciting experience, I thought of several others, but this one sticks in my head like it was yesterday. The bank examiners arrived a few days after I did. We had to rebuild a new data processing system, completely transform our check processing systems, create a viable lending system, and hire folks who knew how to manage these appropriately.

Sometimes you know you will have to roll up your sleeves to help fix an organization. I never entered another position after this one without digging into the company’s status and operational situation beforehand. It was exciting and inspiring, testing my ability to solve complex problems and enjoying the journey. It was also exhausting!

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Be a curious individual. The curiosity quotient is the most critical element in someone’s ability to adapt to organizations that need or want to change. As an anthropologist, I approached positions as an explorer might. I tried to listen to the stories told by staff, clients, and vendors. I never thought I knew enough about what was happening. Observing, listening, and asking questions served me quite well. When I was a senior vice president of a savings bank, I learned quickly that this institution, two hours out of New York City, operated in a very different culture than the commercial bank where I previously worked. It did not take long to see how I had to adjust my speed, my expectations, and even my voice to relate to the employees in this new bank. Rather than think I was wrong, or they were wrong, I was just curious to see how to adapt to a new culture — even one that might seem familiar on the surface but was very different.

2. Showing my vulnerability. A character trait that has served me well is being vulnerable and showing those weak moments. While people talk about being vulnerable today, not everyone understands how to display those attributes and enable others to benefit from them. Whether being a leader who encourages others to grow and thrive or a facilitator who brings teams of people together to solve problems, I genuinely believe that you must see the world through the eyes of the people you lead to get to where you need or want to go. This wisdom often materialized when working with complex teams in large companies. They were, at times, waiting for someone to command and control them. Instead, I built my reputation by letting them think out loud and discuss options before coming to a closure. We always insisted that meetings ended with actions to be taken and things to be discarded. I was successful because they were engaged. They were successful because we enabled them to think and grow.

3. Being agile and moving fast. One thing I learned early on was that overthinking was useless thinking. In businesses going through change, you had to lead others by being ready to make decisions, test ideas, and reflect on or measure what progress you were making. When running a healthcare organization’s marketing department, I found others overthinking decisions until I asked them why. What was holding them back from taking a risk, although a negligible risk, and testing something? Once I freed them from the limitations of over-analyzing problems, we could bring things to market quickly, try them firmly, and move forward effectively.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you help articulate a few of the biggest obstacles or challenges you’ve had to overcome while working in a male-dominated industry?

The biggest obstacles I confronted were:

1. Establishing my presence when I was usually the “only” woman in the room. Whether it was a staff meeting, a board meeting, or a client meeting, I was often the only woman there, regardless of my position. The times were beginning to change as banking recruited more women at senior levels. And in healthcare, many women were moving into management and senior positions. But, all-to-often, I was it! I wasn’t quite the “hat girl” where they gave me their coats to hang up or their coffee to clean up, but the men felt awkward about doing what they thought was a woman’s job. I had to help them feel comfortable letting me be part of their team as a highly competent, albeit female, teammate.

2. Knowing how to respond to comments and critiques when participating in a meeting of mostly men. For a long time, I was naïve about what the words meant. I took them at face value and tried to apply logic or reason to them. Little did I know that I wasn’t supposed to respond at all. Snide remarks were just that, disparaging remarks. And the recurring challenge of women being there but rarely heard was undoubtedly a trademark of these meetings. Slowly, I developed the style and skills to participate as a colleague and gain acceptance.

3. Over preparing for presentations. I found myself compensating for what was becoming a different status placement for a woman executive. I was in a position that men had typically held. To establish my credentials and credibility as a woman executive, I was over-preparing for everything, afraid of not having the right data points or too limited a presentation. It took some time to relax, reflect, and reduce my anxiety. I knew my stuff, and my male and female colleagues knew I was a player.

Can you share a few of the things you have done to gain acceptance among your male peers and the general work community? What did your female co-workers do? Can you share some stories or examples?

As industry was recruiting women into business, women, as I found out, had to do several things to reduce resistance, build acceptance, and become part of the organization. Remember that clubs, departments, or businesses are built with people who typically like to look alike and share common cultures. We used to say that “birds of a feather flock together.” People are no different. Those values, beliefs, and behaviors make people comfortable knowing what to do, right and wrong, and what not to do. It is that culture that is so defining of their attitudes towards the unfamiliar.

Add a woman to the mix, disrupting the traditional, male-dominated culture, and the men are uncomfortable. As I joined companies, I knew why I was an intrusion and even a threat to the status quo. While I understood that then and still see those tensions among my clients today, you can just imagine the wiggling that a woman must do to fit in, then and now. Several memorable things:

• What does a new woman executive look like, and this was 1980? I don’t mind dating myself, but this was early in the transformation of business, and I was a 40 under 40 then. There weren’t any coaches or mentors. It was hard to find a role model, so you made the “role” up by yourself. Do you have to wear a tie of some kind? A masculine suit or a dress that emphasizes your femininity. Every element was subject to someone else’s feedback. But to thrive, you figured it out — or you left.

• What role was I supposed to play? People work together by playing roles in performances. The question I was facing was what part I was playing. I was an anthropologist in the business setting. Do I use my Ph.D. and be the subject matter expert? Do I suppress that and be like everyone else, managing others? As a bank executive, I rarely used my “Ph.D.” title. When I was a healthcare executive, I always used it. I felt I was on a stage, and the play I was in was rewriting my role as I performed it. I became pretty adept at understanding the staging and the others performing on that stage.

• How do you help the men embrace you instead of fleeing you? I saw myself as an early transformer, setting the stage for the women who would follow me. The men needed new roles themselves, new ways to speak to each other and to women, new styles of body language, and ways to build trust when threatened by the unfamiliar, those women. These could be women of color, different ethnic backgrounds, or just women! These are not easy to learn when you know your job from the past and are trying to keep it for the future. I went out of my way to have lunch dates and befriend my male colleagues. The more they got to know me, the less they discounted me. When speaking in meetings, I asked permission to be heard and worked the room, so my ideas were not deleted but embraced. It was theater at its best — or its worst

What do you think male-oriented organizations can do to enhance their recruiting efforts to attract more women?

First, they must change their core stories and want to hire, retain and develop more women. Without that new commitment, they are flawed and will fail. Remember, we live the story we have in our minds. If it is a story where all the major employees are men, you will not see a woman’s value in your organization. That story where women are critical parts of your organization’s leadership, manager and talent must be rewritten, told often, and actualized. You must live it, not just imagine it.

Let me share some illustrations.

Not long ago, I heard a CEO discussing with his friends at a meeting how he had worked for three months to recruit a black woman to his organization. She only lasted three months. What was wrong with his recruiting, he asked? And what was wrong with his candidate?

It was not appropriate to interject any ideas at that time. The other male CEOs did not recognize that the problem was not the woman. And it was not his recruiting. It was the organization’s culture that he was trying to bring new, diverse employees. When we did have time to speak, I asked him how he had prepared his organization for a new hire who did not match them in gender, race, or style. He hadn’t. He wasn’t even sure what I meant.

People expect to work every day next to someone who looks like them, talks like them, and belongs to the same types of clubs, churches, or other groups like them. Do they like the same ball teams? Can they share experiences on the golf course?

From the perspective of the woman recruited to the company I was describing; she was bold and brave. What could that CEO have done to prepare his organization for her participation better? Did the CEO set up a peer-to-peer mentor for her? Could she find someone with whom to have lunch, share a story, or identify? Was she the outlier or becoming part of the team? People want to belong. Recruiting women, or anyone bringing that diversity to your organization, requires leaders to understand that this is not easy for the newcomer or the existing team. And the challenge expands out to the client base as well. That entire ecosystem must be rethought, redesigned, and set on a new course for it to thrive.

I heard of another situation shared by a colleague of a woman recruited to an IT firm. Women have a challenging time in technology companies driven by men. In this case, the woman was hired to be a project manager, a job she felt was an excellent use of her experience and expertise. For the company, it was promoted as an ideal hire to build diversity and inclusion. To her dismay, the woman learned rather quickly that the job was neither what was in the description nor what she had been recruited to perform. Instead, they had reduced the scope of the position, her status diminished, and her responsibilities shifted elsewhere.

This conflict is not unfamiliar to me, having been the “solo” woman on a project team or in a position at financial services firms. It was not until I was an executive that I could restructure organizations’ cultures to hire the right women for the correct positions. My colleagues often positioned the woman and her role beneath those of men. While it was often political and symbolic, it was often without great analysis. It seemed to others to just be “the way we do things.” That makes culture change essential so that men and women can reach the equality of opportunity they deserve, and their companies can attract the talent they require to thrive today.

Ok thank you for all of that. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

Women face a business world where some firms try to change their cultures, embracing equity, inclusion, and diversity, while others talk about these things but are unclear about what they mean. Women are facing a world where being a mother and running a home interfere, for some, with their success in the workplace. Conversely, businesses see women’s role in their organization as a sidebar to their home roles. It is all rather complicated. Remember, change is painful for humans. Our brains hate the unfamiliar and flee from the new.

What to do as a woman seeking meaning in a job? Is it just a way to earn a living or a place to be necessary, trusted, special, and appreciated?

Here are my five things to start you on your way. They are hardly inclusive of all the navigational tools you will need. But let’s at least begin here:

1. First, focus on the people. Begin with the people you will be working with, including those above you, below you, and next to you. As you observe your daily life, you will immerse yourself in conversations, interactions, and relationships. People prefer to be with others who resemble themselves, sound like you, share common values, and live similar stories about their lives. As you think about your job, you may be with more men than women. Even if there is a balance or more women than men, reflect on these people’s roles. What role will you play in those relationships, interactions, and conversations? You will find yourself mastering the art of role shifting as you define yourself and are defined and redefined by others as they try to do their jobs and include you in the mix of jobs. Work is very much a live performance. Start your journey thinking carefully about what role you want to play with whom every day you are doing your work.

To illustrate, I had a new female employee in a manager’s position at a bank where I was an executive. I watched her repeatedly irritate her male colleagues. Her intentions were noble. She was intelligent, energetic, and ready to make things happen. The men, however, found her pushy and enjoyed undermining her directives and delaying projects she was managing. She and I had a quiet, serious conversation about how to get things done with men as her counterparts and subordinates. Her success was going to require a different strategy. Command and control were failing. How could she build trust and respect, so her subordinates wanted the project to get done on time and under budget? Her style required a reboot. She reflected on her previous experiences and how that organization had been run in a very command and control fashion with rules that ruled. In this new environment, there was a great deal more collaboration taking place and being encouraged. While she had the title, she needed a new way to perform her role, or her followers were aborting her directives and enjoying her pain. In hindsight, had she understood the dynamics before she joined the company, she would have better prepared herself for the road ahead.

2. Second, what is your role? If you have done an excellent job defining your roles (and you will have several), watch how your colleagues and boss react to you. Are you heard in meetings or ignored? Are you invited to lunch or casual conversations or shunned? Regardless of how others have started to build their daily routines with or without you, you must craft your place and role in this organization. Be intentional and thoughtful. Where are you going to press others to engage with you? Where are you going to ignore the innuendos? You will have to creatively establish your position and hold on to it as others try to move you around. Expect this to happen.

In another situation, I watched in board meetings (primarily comprised of men) how my presentations seemed to be a time for men to get up, get their coffee, or leave the room. In both, respect was missing. My boss advised me to take a different tack besides getting upset about the lack of respect. He suggested I discuss with several of the men in either the meeting or the board meeting what I planned to discuss ahead of time. I should ask them for their perspectives and concerns. It was as if it was a rehearsal for the performance. As I began my presentations, I engaged with them around the topics we had already considered and ensured they could not discount my presentation without damaging their stature. It took time. But slowly, I watched as the dynamics in the room changed. There was more interest and respect for my presentations and my comments. I was building allies, and they were becoming my supporters.

3. Third, search for women to mentor, sponsor, or join you. Don’t ignore the power women colleagues can bring to the culture you are operating within. As a strong, insightful woman, your ideas need a support team. Work with your women colleagues to help each other improve the environment when working with men on projects or programs. If you thrive in a male-dominated industry, look for others who can help redefine the “way we do things” in that industry or company. Culture sets the standards for how people get along and get the day’s work done. Don’t let a toxic one continue. Role shifts and culture change require people like you to change softly and subtly from “what we do” to “what we should do.”

Very few women worked in my area when I was an executive in a large regional banking system division. One of the more senior women in the system approached me and suggested we have lunch when she was in the area. It was one of the best lunches I ever had. She and I began to talk about how to manage our male colleagues, techniques she had learned to balance those relationships, and things she wanted to change in the organization. I became part of her support team as she slowly began to assemble other women in middle management positions. It was slow, as change always is. But you could see the changes and feel the momentum as the men opened up and allowed you to join them. I know that sounds off-putting. But whoever owns the playing field controls the game. If you want to play, you must learn the rules, change them if you can, and play well.

4. Fourth, know the culture. Do you like it? Does it encourage an open, balanced engagement between men and women? Do you want to change it? You might ask, “how do you change a culture?” When I got into business as an anthropologist, I realized that most people do not know what they are doing or why. I knew that until you observed people doing their daily routines, you imagined what they were thinking and why they were doing things. People have a story or a mind map that creates a platform for their daily lives. It is like a movie that keeps rolling along. To modify that culture to one where you can perform your best, you must step back and observe for a while. What is happening? Not just what people say is happening or think is taking place. What do you see? Listen carefully with an open mind. How could it help you modify your actions to better position yourself for success?

I watched as one of our clients struggled with several of their talented women professionals. The specific business is not relevant. It was a firm where the leadership was all men. The women did all the work, even if it was rather technical and sophisticated. I would coach the women to find those spots where there was friction and develop intentional process improvement discussions with the leadership. While the changes were presented in terms of improving the business, it was mainly focused on improving these women’s ability to change their roles and relationships in those processes. The ideas these women suggested worked some of the time. Other times, their ideas were simply ignored or deleted. Yet, slowly over time, there was progress, particularly after the partners lost several women who were being groomed as future managers. Those women went to other firms to find better cultures and more senior women who could sponsor and mentor them.

5. Fifth, what is your story? The mind does exactly what it thinks you want it to do. It only sees those experiences or data points that corroborate the story you carry in your mind. To thrive in a male-dominated business or industry, you will have to collaborate with your mind to understand the story in the minds of those with whom you work. How do they see women, professionally and personally? How is your story set up to help build relationships with those men? The five things about your mind are: it does exactly what it thinks you want it to do; it loves the familiar and flees the unknown or threatening; it moves towards pleasure; it hates to change. And it is very efficient at following habits. For a resourceful woman trying to thrive in a world where you are seen as that foreigner, that unfamiliar intruder, that threat, you must build for others a better story.

To illustrate this, one of the women I interviewed in my book, “Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business,” tells the story of being a successful woman attorney in a large, male-dominated firm. She moved up into the management roles steadily. While on the compensation committee, she was floored by the differences between the performance reviews filed by men and by women. The men all wrote about how they had climbed the Empire State Building to save the damsel in distress and recover for the client $500 million. The women wrote about how they worked with others in teams to solve their client’s problems, so they never lost any money. The heroic men were given promotions and raise, and the women kept their jobs. There are 400,000 women attorneys today, but only 26% of them are equity partners in law firms. Those stories tell a great deal about how men and women see the world. If life is all in the stories captured in our minds-eye, you must pay close attention to your own story. Make sure it opens up pathways for you to move forward however and wherever you want

If you had a close woman friend who came to you with a choice of entering a male-dominated or female-dominated field, what would you advise her? Would you advise a woman friend to start a career in a field or industry that’s traditionally been mostly men? Can you explain what you mean?

If you had a close woman friend who came to you with a choice of entering a field that is male dominated or female dominated, what would you advise her? Would you advise a woman friend to start a career in a field or industry that’s traditionally been mostly men? Can you explain what you mean?

When I researched and then wrote my book, Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business, I realized that every woman has a challenge regardless of the type of industry or gender or race, or other biases she faces. Your own decisions should reflect your skills, style, and substance. Who are you, what do you want to bring to this world, and how will a job in a particular industry or field help you realize that purpose? Purpose-driven people do better than those who need a position to make a living — and there is nothing wrong with that. Choose wisely. And don’t feel you are ever stuck or stalled. Reflect as you progress, build your skills and substance, and find the right place or places to shine.

Have you seen things change for women working in male-dominated industries, over the past ten years? How do you anticipate that it might improve in the future? Can you please explain what you mean?

Many businesses today realize that gender neutrality creates a work environment where talent can thrive and bottom lines can soar. Look for those business leaders who articulate a commitment to being “allies of her,” meaning they want to support women and expect women to be their supporters. Eighty percent of the companies researched say they are all for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but only thirty percent of those are doing something. Many of those companies are prominent and major influencers in the industry, from Walmart to P&G. They want a diverse supply chain. They are deliberately searching for a balance in their workforce and leadership teams. As more move the needle forward, others will emulate them. The women leading companies of purpose will accelerate that movement. When my friend Jamie Candee, CEO of Edmentum, said she wanted a company where men and women felt they were able to be equal in pay, position, and power, she meant it and is creating a company of great purpose and promise.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Ariana Huffington would be one woman with whom I would love to have a moment to share stories and celebrate her own transformation and leadership.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.