‘What do women want?’ is a question that is as old as the universe, if popular culture is to be believed. While, civilisation isn’t any closer to answering that particular question, what is becoming increasingly evident is the fact that women want economic freedom, the catalyst that frees them from the dominance of men, at long last ‘Masters Of Their Own Destiny’. As their numbers increase in male dominated work fields, they have cause to revel in the fact that no longer do they need a man to provide shelter, put food on the table or clothes on their back, his ‘bedroom and kitchen slaves’. They do all that and more pretty well on their own.
From President’s to Prime Ministers of nations, corporate boardrooms to entrepreneurships, Armed Forces to Members of Parliament, from medicine to IT, Research & Development to high finance wheeling and dealing, think of any field and you are sure to find a woman who has dared to break the barriers, stormed the male bastions of power. No longer content to pose as simply easy-on-the-eye secretaries or receptionists, hired more for their good looks than the grey matter housed in their craniums, they have struggled to break free of gender stereo-types, and one cannot help but applaud and exclaim: ‘You’ve come a long way, baby!' as they light up a Virginia Slims and knock back a chaser!
However, while women are contributing equally, perhaps a little more or a little less to house hold incomes, double-income families are not an invention of modern times. “In prehistoric times, double-income families were the norm, and women provided 60-80% of the evening meal,” says Ms Fisher in her article on “Why Companies Need Female Managers” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7209353.stm). According to her, the invention of the plough and resultant need for hard manual labour caused the balance of power to shift, and it is only since World War I women are re-entering the workforce and regaining their status in society.
However, there are much more fundamental differences between men and women that have been shaped over millennia of evolution. For starters, brain scans and research prove it, including the fact that men and women think differently. On average, women gather more data, consider the context, are intuitive, have a sympathising mind and think more long-term, which Ms. Fisher calls ‘web thinking’. Men, on the other hand, are more focused, think linear, focus on rules and the short-term - ‘step thinking’. If, you want proof, then research shows film scripts written by women are more complex, with more ambiguous endings than those written by men. Further, male doctors focus on the illness and its treatment, while female doctors take a more holistic approach.
This enforces her belief that the long-term thinking of women makes them better investors, an opinion corroborated by a Merrill Lynch Investment Managers gender study that throws up some interesting results. It found that women investors while less knowledgeable about financial markets and products than men, were more interested in finding out about them than men. They also went on to make fewer investment mistakes and repeated them less often than men. As well, women were far less likely to hold on to a losing investment (35% of women reported having done so at least once against 47% of men) or wait too long to sell a winner (28% versus 43%) than men. The research also revealed men were more likely than women to allocate too much to one investment, or buy a hot investment without doing any research and trade securities, highlighting women’s behavioural tendency to play safe with their investments.
Men may be considered to be far more analytically inclined than women; however, women plan better for the long-term. Perhaps, that is why Infosys mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy has a mantra for working women who aspire to reach the top. He advises companies to give them the option of working from home, on those days when home demands get too pressing. He believes in giving them a three year break from work, so they can take care of growing children. A period they could utilise for upgrading knowledge and skills, even while they stay at home, coming back to work later.
“Companies should make policies that make it is a win-win situation, both for the employer and its employees,” he recently stated, while addressing women delegates representing the IT sector.
As India’s IT sector alone employs 21% of the 6% of it’s working women population, issues like gender equality, greater participation, commitment to stretching jobs was the key focus area of the one-day annual conference on ‘Women in IT’. Organised by Infosys, under the banner of Infosys Women's Inclusivity Network, the conference was attended by 96-delegates from companies like TCS, Wipro, Lucent Technologies and Sun.
Ending with a group discussion on how to create women leaders in IT, Murthy concluded by saying “Running an industry by excluding women, who have sizeable amount of talent, is like the corporate engines working on half filled cylinders.” And, to prove his point Murthy highlighted the fact that a survey of the United Kingdom FTSE 100 companies showed, the equity return of firms with women on their boards averaged 13.8% as compared to 9.8% for those that had an ‘All Boys Club’ i.e. all males on its Board. Emphasisng the commitment and compassion female employees had for their companies, he reiterated they should be provided with equal opportunities for growth and given challenging roles.
Citing examples of successful women like Kiran Majumdar - bio-tech enterpreneur, Lalitha Gupte - ICICI Bank Board of Directors of, Shehnaz Hussain - beauty expert, Murthy said: “Women executives at senior levels in companies encourage female subordinates to aspire big.”
He felt the reason why 90% of managers across information technology firms were male, was because women opted out of mid-level careers due to family pressure. And, why women were not able to reach the top was, because women employees failed to get ‘stretching’ jobs like working on an ailing division or driving a new business, which 99% of the time went to their male counterparts.
More than substantiating Ms. Fisher’s findings, over the ages men were the hunters who needed to remain focused. Women, in contrast, had much more diverse tasks, like bringing up children (which Ms Fisher also believes may be the reason why women are better talkers: language being the key tool to control children).
Business Case
So ,what does all this mean for business leaders?
Ø It means they should combine the long-term thinking of women with the short-term focus of men.
Ø They should bear in mind that different thinking also results in very different behaviour.
- Men think more in terms of status and rank. Women prefer flat hierarchies.
- Men can have tunnel vision; women may fail to get to the point.
- Women find it difficult to counter aggression, while when men push back it earns them the respect of other men.
- When women apologise, they are not really sorry. For men it's a serious affair, a perceived weakening of their status.
The list of differences is endless, but the message is loud and clear. Managers have to realise that while men and women act differently, they also complement each other. As women rise in status, according to Ms. Fisher, we ‘move forward to a lifestyle we had a million years ago’. The world over, we are coming full circle i.e. dual income households.
So, whatever the difference between men and women in the workfield, let’s say ‘Vive le difference!’ Encore! ‘VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!’ May it live forever!
From President’s to Prime Ministers of nations, corporate boardrooms to entrepreneurships, Armed Forces to Members of Parliament, from medicine to IT, Research & Development to high finance wheeling and dealing, think of any field and you are sure to find a woman who has dared to break the barriers, stormed the male bastions of power. No longer content to pose as simply easy-on-the-eye secretaries or receptionists, hired more for their good looks than the grey matter housed in their craniums, they have struggled to break free of gender stereo-types, and one cannot help but applaud and exclaim: ‘You’ve come a long way, baby!' as they light up a Virginia Slims and knock back a chaser!
However, while women are contributing equally, perhaps a little more or a little less to house hold incomes, double-income families are not an invention of modern times. “In prehistoric times, double-income families were the norm, and women provided 60-80% of the evening meal,” says Ms Fisher in her article on “Why Companies Need Female Managers” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7209353.stm). According to her, the invention of the plough and resultant need for hard manual labour caused the balance of power to shift, and it is only since World War I women are re-entering the workforce and regaining their status in society.
However, there are much more fundamental differences between men and women that have been shaped over millennia of evolution. For starters, brain scans and research prove it, including the fact that men and women think differently. On average, women gather more data, consider the context, are intuitive, have a sympathising mind and think more long-term, which Ms. Fisher calls ‘web thinking’. Men, on the other hand, are more focused, think linear, focus on rules and the short-term - ‘step thinking’. If, you want proof, then research shows film scripts written by women are more complex, with more ambiguous endings than those written by men. Further, male doctors focus on the illness and its treatment, while female doctors take a more holistic approach.
This enforces her belief that the long-term thinking of women makes them better investors, an opinion corroborated by a Merrill Lynch Investment Managers gender study that throws up some interesting results. It found that women investors while less knowledgeable about financial markets and products than men, were more interested in finding out about them than men. They also went on to make fewer investment mistakes and repeated them less often than men. As well, women were far less likely to hold on to a losing investment (35% of women reported having done so at least once against 47% of men) or wait too long to sell a winner (28% versus 43%) than men. The research also revealed men were more likely than women to allocate too much to one investment, or buy a hot investment without doing any research and trade securities, highlighting women’s behavioural tendency to play safe with their investments.
Men may be considered to be far more analytically inclined than women; however, women plan better for the long-term. Perhaps, that is why Infosys mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy has a mantra for working women who aspire to reach the top. He advises companies to give them the option of working from home, on those days when home demands get too pressing. He believes in giving them a three year break from work, so they can take care of growing children. A period they could utilise for upgrading knowledge and skills, even while they stay at home, coming back to work later.
“Companies should make policies that make it is a win-win situation, both for the employer and its employees,” he recently stated, while addressing women delegates representing the IT sector.
As India’s IT sector alone employs 21% of the 6% of it’s working women population, issues like gender equality, greater participation, commitment to stretching jobs was the key focus area of the one-day annual conference on ‘Women in IT’. Organised by Infosys, under the banner of Infosys Women's Inclusivity Network, the conference was attended by 96-delegates from companies like TCS, Wipro, Lucent Technologies and Sun.
Ending with a group discussion on how to create women leaders in IT, Murthy concluded by saying “Running an industry by excluding women, who have sizeable amount of talent, is like the corporate engines working on half filled cylinders.” And, to prove his point Murthy highlighted the fact that a survey of the United Kingdom FTSE 100 companies showed, the equity return of firms with women on their boards averaged 13.8% as compared to 9.8% for those that had an ‘All Boys Club’ i.e. all males on its Board. Emphasisng the commitment and compassion female employees had for their companies, he reiterated they should be provided with equal opportunities for growth and given challenging roles.
Citing examples of successful women like Kiran Majumdar - bio-tech enterpreneur, Lalitha Gupte - ICICI Bank Board of Directors of, Shehnaz Hussain - beauty expert, Murthy said: “Women executives at senior levels in companies encourage female subordinates to aspire big.”
He felt the reason why 90% of managers across information technology firms were male, was because women opted out of mid-level careers due to family pressure. And, why women were not able to reach the top was, because women employees failed to get ‘stretching’ jobs like working on an ailing division or driving a new business, which 99% of the time went to their male counterparts.
More than substantiating Ms. Fisher’s findings, over the ages men were the hunters who needed to remain focused. Women, in contrast, had much more diverse tasks, like bringing up children (which Ms Fisher also believes may be the reason why women are better talkers: language being the key tool to control children).
Business Case
So ,what does all this mean for business leaders?
Ø It means they should combine the long-term thinking of women with the short-term focus of men.
Ø They should bear in mind that different thinking also results in very different behaviour.
- Men think more in terms of status and rank. Women prefer flat hierarchies.
- Men can have tunnel vision; women may fail to get to the point.
- Women find it difficult to counter aggression, while when men push back it earns them the respect of other men.
- When women apologise, they are not really sorry. For men it's a serious affair, a perceived weakening of their status.
The list of differences is endless, but the message is loud and clear. Managers have to realise that while men and women act differently, they also complement each other. As women rise in status, according to Ms. Fisher, we ‘move forward to a lifestyle we had a million years ago’. The world over, we are coming full circle i.e. dual income households.
So, whatever the difference between men and women in the workfield, let’s say ‘Vive le difference!’ Encore! ‘VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!’ May it live forever!
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