Читать книгу Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business - Avivah Wittenberg-Cox - Страница 4

As a research-based company, Bayer usually sees innovation through the lens of scientific or technical breakthroughs. Yet the company’s approach to leadership can also be considered innovative.

For the past two years, based on the advice that appears in Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business, Bayer has been quietly building awareness and skills to lead across cultures and genders across all its global teams. Many of our corporate neighbors are responding to the legal and political pressures of European gender quotas by implementing initiatives focused on women.

I share Avivah Wittenberg-Cox’s idea that it’s time for companies to take a much broader look at the realities of changing markets and the demographics of talent. The globalization of markets and the dramatic increase in the number of women among the world’s educated workforce are drivers for any multinational company interested in growth and innovative responses to fast-changing conditions.

Many of Bayer’s senior leadership teams worldwide have held the kind of strategic debates described in this book. They focused on why and how we want to adjust the balance of national cultures and genders in the company’s management. Division heads, country managers, and functional teams have used these sessions to analyze and understand shifting global and national trends and statistics in both talent and markets—and craft action plans to adapt mind-sets, processes, and plans.

This book offers clear guidelines on how to create sustainable gender and cultural balance. Notably, that initiatives should be leader-led, strategically focused, and business-driven. Accountability for change must lie with leaders to define and implement the balance that makes the most sense to their changing business realities. And CEOs must recognize that it takes time to build awareness and skills for managers to effectively lead across cultures and genders.

Based on a recently completed survey of a cross section of the organization’s leaders, senior management at Bayer is now aligned on the need for change. There is also a widespread recognition that this is the responsibility of leaders and managers—not HR or diversity departments. This investment should now accelerate the already-improving balance we are seeing in management.

This is the beginning of a journey. Bayer’s talent pipeline, the profile of our senior executives, and the company’s management composition have all steadily evolved over the past two years. The goal is not to change overnight. Instead, we are committed to making steady progress in reflecting the markets we serve and the talent we have internally. I am personally committed to this objective, and I recognize that leadership is the key to unlocking the benefits that better balance will bring to Bayer. This book shows the way, but the buck stops with every CEO.

—Marijn Dekkers, CEO, Bayer