Читать книгу Winning the Talent Shift - Berta Aldrich - Страница 13

“If you exclude 50% of the talent pool, it's no wonder you find yourself in a war for talent.”

–Theresa J. Whitmarsh, executive director of the Washington State Investment Board

Spotting and addressing the barriers that are blocking organizations from the enormous opportunities and advantages of high-performing, right-balanced teams with great leadership isn't difficult, but you have to know where to look.

Let's begin with the story of Mike, someone who embodies the experiences of many male employees in the business world.

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Mike was smart, driven, and loved to compete, graduating from a prestigious university with honors and starring on its football team. He viewed every aspect of his life as a challenge to be the best, whether it was his relationships, college studies, or job. After graduation, a large financial services company hired Mike for a financial analyst role. Mike and his boss, a fellow college athlete, hit it off right away. Conversations about sports over cups of coffee in the hallway evolved into frequent lunches together. Although no other female colleague received similar invites to eat lunch with the boss, Mike chalked it up to his initiative, drive, and winning personality. And while female colleagues were interrupted in meetings by a few combative colleagues, Mike's boss always made sure that his views were carefully considered over their objections.

Thanks to their frequent business lunches, Mike's boss introduced him to his own boss and other peers throughout the organization. When it was time for promotions, Mike's boss advocated for his promotion, although he had only been at the company for six months. No other employee had advanced as quickly, even his hard-working colleagues Amy and Margot, who had been key contributors on his most successful projects and had been overlooked despite being with the company for 18 months.

Leadership throughout the organization began to perceive Mike in the same way his boss did: he was competent, a great leader, and had promise and potential. Mike continued to progress through the organization, making the most of every opportunity in his path, and ultimately landed in a senior executive position. A few times in his career he encountered an overly aggressive executive who used his power to subdue him and deride his performance, but Mike always managed to deflect the person's behavior or to address it head-on. He had built a big enough network to sustain him through these small hits to his career. Each conflict with a colleague or manager attempting to derail him became an opportunity to compete and win. When Mike heard reports of some colleagues, mostly women, being bullied by his latest supervisor, he found that bully's weakness and relied on his own network in order to prevail. At times Mike crossed paths with Amy, who had advanced to a position below him in the company but surprisingly stalled in her progress despite producing excellent work. He learned that Margot had moved on to another firm and reasoned that she had been unable to handle the high-stakes pressure and risks like he could.

Mike leveraged each opportunity and relationship to prepare himself for his next step. Over time he became known throughout the company as decisive, competitive, and a risk taker. Departments and projects under his responsibility consistently produced positive outcomes. He developed a strong network outside of his company and stayed up on industry trends. If he wanted information, he simply reached out to his vast network of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. He would leverage this information with his leadership team, from which they would generate ideas. Mike even distinguished himself by serving on a nonprofit board. After 18 years in the business, he was finally promoted to the C-suite and had reached the pinnacle of his career.

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Mike's story stands out as a tale of success. He wisely made the most of each opportunity, took initiative, and understood when to take risks. His success is not a mirage, and he had a lot to be proud of as he looked back on his career. However, Mike and many of his colleagues were also blind to the inequalities others experienced, especially women. Mike rose to success, but how much unnecessary conflict held him and his colleagues back? How many sleepless nights did he have because he was being targeted by another leader who was levels higher than him? How many employees suffered unnecessary distress and loss of productivity because of leaders who undermined them? Can we even quantify the loss of a talented colleague like Margot or the barriers that prevented Amy from leading at a higher capacity?

It's likely that more women in leadership roles could have spotted the toxic trends holding women back at Mike's company. This would have greatly benefited Amy and Margot, while also helping Mike and the company, since he had already demonstrated good chemistry while working with them. Despite Mike's success, his story suggests that, in many workplaces, all may not be well. That possibility comes into sharper focus with the story of Jennifer.

If we track the story of Jennifer, who shares much of the same promise and potential as Mike, we may find some unexpected barriers Mike never considered and a much better idea of the antiquated culture companies need to address with a shift toward a high-performance, right-balanced culture.

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Jennifer graduated summa cum laude from a state college with a world-renowned engineering program. She studied hard for her grades, served as president of her sorority, raised money for childhood cancer research, and worked as a resident assistant to pay for her college expenses. She was smart, driven, and loved to make a difference, using every aspect of her life to lead teams of people to do great things. Her family even put her in charge of planning their vacations because of her attention to detail, consideration of others, and ability to meet a tight deadline.

After Jennifer's college graduation, a large engineering company hired her as an assistant engineer and placed her under Tim, a tough and very competitive boss. Tim rarely met with Jennifer one-on-one, and when he communicated about her, he sold her ideas as his own. Despite Jennifer's excellent work that earned the praise of her colleagues, Tim never advocated for Jennifer. When she asked about the requirements for a promotion, Tim told her to sit tight and it would eventually come.

After 12 months, Jennifer received a 2% raise but no promotion. She continued to work 80 hours per week, producing twice the amount of work as others while helping her colleagues succeed. She noticed that the company had a need to share information so that everyone could perform better at their jobs, so she started a study club every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 a.m. She developed a reputation for being a great leader of people, inspiring others, especially the few women peers she had in the organization, to be their best and to persevere through difficulty. After 18 months, Jennifer was promoted alongside other males who had only been there six months. She became a leader of more engineers and was rated a top 5% leader in their annual Gallup poll. Nevertheless, she was rotated to another role under a senior leader with a reputation throughout the organization for bullying. Although several subordinates had reported his behavior over the years, HR never followed through and those who reported the bullying behavior seemed to disappear. Jennifer soon found herself on the receiving end of his angry remarks and demeaning comments, but she resolved to work through the adversity since she lacked confidence in how HR would respond.

During Jennifer's year-end review, her boss minimized her many accomplishments and denied her a raise. Although her mentor sympathized with Jennifer, she endured another frustrating year before being rotated into another department. She had lost two years of merits and bonuses. As she focused on creating industry-leading programs and projects that earned accolades from some, she had to constantly waste her time warding off highly competitive peers who used their political influence to gain power throughout the organization. Because she was an all-around top performer in virtually every role, she repeatedly encountered envious peers who used their political influence and savvy to take her off her trajectory. Little did she know she was a threat to their existence – apparently, there was only one job for both of them.

As Jennifer rose through the ranks, she was harassed, told to perform unethical tasks, baited, subjected to character assassination, reported to bad bosses, and suffered the insults of narcissistic peers. Much of her energy was spent warding off attacks, all while attempting to lead her teams and to create inspiring cultures in these hypercompetitive environments. Through it all, she remained focused on the endgame of being a good person and doing the right thing. Toward the end of her career, she was recognized with several awards for her impact in her industry and for her inspiring leadership. She was finally promoted to the C-suite after 25 years in the business and had reached the pinnacle of her career.

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These two stories are dramatically different and are representative of the dichotomy of today's experiences in the workplace. Mike had an instant bond with his manager over sports and shared interests that gave him an advantage whenever an imposter sought to undermine or bully him. By contrast, the barriers in Jennifer's workplace are clear. Although Mike's story hinted at the inequalities and bullying that happen in the workplace, Jennifer's experience drives home the urgency of our current situation. While selflessly building up her colleagues and working long hours to produce excellent results, she was surrounded by bullying, backstabbing, hypercompetitiveness, and verbal abuse. The leaders and HR managers who could have changed this situation were often primarily men who either didn't notice what was happening because they didn't experience the workplace the same as women or they just assumed that only the strong survive and women need to adapt. Mike was largely shielded from bullying and competitive peers through the relationship he built with a supportive boss. By the time he faced significant adversity, he was fortunate enough to have both the experience and support to work through it. Jennifer never had that benefit, and the same could be said for Amy and Margot in Mike's story.

While Mike and Jennifer each enjoyed a measure of success in their respective companies, both wasted valuable time and energy managing divisive relationships. Mike and his team lost two talented female employees who were bullied and mistreated, while Jennifer lost valuable productivity and personal restoration time due to bullying and inequalities. Unfortunately, hypercompetitiveness, bullying, and abuse are the norm in many workplaces. Just look at the #metoo movement: the proverbial hornets' nest has been whacked, finally revealing the most sinister side of the business world and many other segments of our society.

In order to maintain a competitive edge, remain profitable, and attract top-tier talent, companies today need to foster healthier right-balanced cultures, especially among their leadership and C-suite, where standout employees like Mike and Jennifer can thrive. Companies have the talent they need, but that talent is being minimized or squandered. In fact, if we teamed up Mike and Jennifer, they would be a high-performing team with Mike's outward competitiveness, risk taking, awareness of current trends, and drive to move the business forward, coupled with Jennifer's strong leadership of people, delivering results, and willingness to develop internal mechanisms to help others perform at their very best. The two of them highlight the potential of a right-balanced high-performing leadership team. In fact, let's consider how a high-performing team that is right-balanced could produce exceptional work at a company.

Consider the story of Kris and Allen, both assigned to the company's highest-priority project. Kris was a well-respected leader who inspired teams to perform at the highest levels of the organization. Allen was widely regarded by colleagues for his attention to detail and awareness of market trends. Over the years, Kris and Allen had forged a respectful, professional relationship and had a true appreciation for each other's talents. They expected the same respect to be shown within their team. In the beginning of the project, they established ground rules for the team to follow, rules that included respectful disagreement, focusing on the end goal, pursuing the best answer instead of being right, equal representation of ideas, and no interrupting. The team knew that Kris and Allen would model these behaviors and hold them accountable as well.

As they defined the project scope, it was clear that Kris was strategic, practical, and organized. Allen brought insights, facts, and competitive information. Their team designed an innovative product, but during execution meetings, team members, including Kris and Allen, were sometimes on completely different sides of an idea. However, they always worked together to help the team find the best solution. When they disagreed, they did so behind closed doors and talked out their differences, making decisions in the best interests of the company and the project. When other senior executives tried to hijack the project, Kris and Allen joined forces to support one another in reaching their shared goal. They were a true team.

The project finished on time, on budget, and was a huge success. The entire team was recognized for leveraging their technical and collaborative skills. They didn't look to defend a position, but instead, they looked for the best answer, the one that achieved their initial goal and got the project across the finish line. Members of their team showed up each day feeling motivated and inspired, and they carried vital insights of leadership and teamwork into their future projects.

It is also worth noting that this team survived, even thrived, all while operating in a larger work environment that was toxic. Unfortunately, today's workplace cultures are not changed by one project or two leaders at a time. The first step to changing a workplace culture is to eliminate the systemic barriers that prohibit a more integrated, high-performing workplace, so that every team, not just Kris and Allen's, can perform at their highest capacity.