It’s a bit concerning that nearly 100 years after the suffrage of women in the US, there’s still such a disconnect in leadership for women. It doesn’t make sense that with all the education and learning and time, that women should have such a low representation in global leadership and top managerial positions. For the most part when it comes to gender bias, what we’ve mostly done is created affirmative action programs or quotas, awareness programs about gender bias, and trained women to be more assertive. I wonder though if we’ve approached it the wrong way…
The classical music field faced the same challenge. As Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Blink, in the 1980s women only composed 5% of symphony members. They could have approached it by saying that the Orchestra Maestros have a powerful bias against women and worked to change perception through education and awareness raising. Instead what they did was make the auditions blind. All the auditions occurred behind a screen and suddenly women the norms started to change. Instruments that were thought only to fit men started to find the best performing players in some women. The role of women jumped from 5% to over 50% in just 25 years.
What do we learn from this? The focus on the intervention was on the instinctive judgments, those things we can’t control. The perceptions we don’t realize we’re making. Perhaps its time to make our decisions about leadership blind too. Imagine an interview for a leadership position that was blind. The applicant submitted answers through an intermediary and all applications would be expunged of data related to age, gender, ethnicity. What would really have then is something focused solely on performance, on ability, and not all the other things that inform our views of people. Imagine then what would happen to the balance of gender in leadership. Perhaps the answer is much simpler than we thought.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Don't Prepare, Listen
Being a perfectionist by nature, I’ve felt the constant pressure to perfect my ideas and the way in which I share my ideas. I’ve pored over the wording of a pitch or piece of marketing material because in my view that’s what makes the difference between a flop and a success.
Nonetheless, I had the strangest experience today. I came to meeting today of a student organization I’m looking to work with to share an opportunity for creating a shared vision in the organization. I had spent the morning writing and re-writing my pitch and finally came to something that I was comfortable with. However, within the first five minutes of being in the meeting, I realized that what I had come with was not what they needed. For the next half hour I listened to what the group talked about, how they interacted, and what they seemed to be calling for. When it came to be my turn I had shifted my idea. I had come in thinking that what the organization needed was a shared vision of what it was about. But now, I realized what it needed was an opportunity for people to share what this organization would look like if they were excited to be a part of it; an opportunity to connect what they wanted to what the organization would looked like. My intuition was spot on and the group jumped at the opportunity to do this.
It seems to contradict logic, but the less you prepare and the most you listen, the more likely you’ll get what you want. Perhaps the secret of successful marketers and salesmen, because something about it just seems to work.
Nonetheless, I had the strangest experience today. I came to meeting today of a student organization I’m looking to work with to share an opportunity for creating a shared vision in the organization. I had spent the morning writing and re-writing my pitch and finally came to something that I was comfortable with. However, within the first five minutes of being in the meeting, I realized that what I had come with was not what they needed. For the next half hour I listened to what the group talked about, how they interacted, and what they seemed to be calling for. When it came to be my turn I had shifted my idea. I had come in thinking that what the organization needed was a shared vision of what it was about. But now, I realized what it needed was an opportunity for people to share what this organization would look like if they were excited to be a part of it; an opportunity to connect what they wanted to what the organization would looked like. My intuition was spot on and the group jumped at the opportunity to do this.
It seems to contradict logic, but the less you prepare and the most you listen, the more likely you’ll get what you want. Perhaps the secret of successful marketers and salesmen, because something about it just seems to work.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Infectious Marketing...
150 people froze in place all at the same time. The same people moved all at the same time moved to the sides of the hallway and cheered for the random people coming through on their way to class. The event was called a Flashmob. Something got 150 people to come to the same place at the same time to participate in a random event. What got them there was infectious marketing.
There’s a lot of talk about networked marketing-the spread of ideas and products through networks. However, not every networked marketing approach works. The main difference between those that do and those that don’t are 1) Infectious Energy and 2) Simplicity. The infectious energy means that it connects exactly to what people want. Most marketing starts off by saying, “Here’s a really great product…”. Infectious marketing is starting from “What do you want?” or “If you’re XX type of person, you might find this interesting.” I talked about this with a friend last week who wants to start a chocolate business. It’s about finding the group that will respond to your offer with, “That’s the coolest thing ever!” If you get that response, you’ll have infectious energy. The second key piece is simplicity. Multiple instructions don’t work for people. I’ve seen Flashmobs fail before because they said meet at XX, freeze at 1:30, and unfreeze at 1:32. For this event, all people had to do was show up at a particular place, then I would tell them the next step. Buyers need to be guided to the sale of an idea or product one step at a time, otherwise they won’t even bother.
It’s rare that I see events or products spread like wildfire. What I witnessed today and have witnessed several times in the past is that it’s possible to create things that grow beyond your control; it’s all about how you do it.
There’s a lot of talk about networked marketing-the spread of ideas and products through networks. However, not every networked marketing approach works. The main difference between those that do and those that don’t are 1) Infectious Energy and 2) Simplicity. The infectious energy means that it connects exactly to what people want. Most marketing starts off by saying, “Here’s a really great product…”. Infectious marketing is starting from “What do you want?” or “If you’re XX type of person, you might find this interesting.” I talked about this with a friend last week who wants to start a chocolate business. It’s about finding the group that will respond to your offer with, “That’s the coolest thing ever!” If you get that response, you’ll have infectious energy. The second key piece is simplicity. Multiple instructions don’t work for people. I’ve seen Flashmobs fail before because they said meet at XX, freeze at 1:30, and unfreeze at 1:32. For this event, all people had to do was show up at a particular place, then I would tell them the next step. Buyers need to be guided to the sale of an idea or product one step at a time, otherwise they won’t even bother.
It’s rare that I see events or products spread like wildfire. What I witnessed today and have witnessed several times in the past is that it’s possible to create things that grow beyond your control; it’s all about how you do it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)