Many executives and board leaders finally get it that they need more women in their boards.Even though the interest is growing for female board members, there is not enough progress being made for this important participation. One possible explanation may be research reported in the Harvard Business Review over the past 5 years.
McKinsey studies move beyond the business case for more women in middle and senior leadership roles….
More than 80 percent of participating companies’ HR leaders believe that gender diversity is a business imperative. CEOs articulate simple, compelling rationales, such as “getting the best brains to work on the problem” or having a workforce that better matches customer demographics. When we asked for the business metrics that proved the return on investment, one senior executive told us, “It’s common sense— those who tell you they need more are just looking for an excuse not to act.”1
From work by Ibarra we conclude that to break through old performance levels, board leaders need to talk more about the 70-20-10 rule, where 70% of a leader’s learning and development comes from on-the-job learning through stretch assignments, with only 20% and 10% coming from mentoring and classroom learning, respectively.2 How does your board not only look for strong women board candidates, but how well are you providing them opportunities to move quickly into important committee and project assignments to gain and apply knowledge, and gain visibility and rapport with other board colleagues?
Gender champions are finding that visibility of assignments is more important than originally expected. Correll and Mackenzie conclude that the most critical factor for advanced leadership opportunities is “Visibility”.3 They express visibility as a complex interaction of perceived skills (particularly technical and leadership ones), access to stretch assignments, and being known—and liked—by influential senior leaders within informal networks.
So how can health system boards apply this insight in your recruitment and governing activities? We see three imperatives:
- Reaffirm and continuously acknowledge the value of women as thought leaders, collaborators and links to essential consumer purchasing and service use patterns. But this is only a start of the journey for gender balance.
- Expand your reliance on mentoring new women board members as they are invited early in their board service to key advisory councils, committees and task forces
- Most importantly, ask women early in their service to take on and report on important and visible challenges, projects and work groups essential to the success of the health system. Do not, however, hang them out with little chance for success by providing only weak staff support or unclear expectations of the issues and options to be explored.
Taking these actions will enable your organization to more likely thrive in the uncertain and turbulent waters of population health, accountable care, and value for money payments.
Have a conversation with your senior leaders next week about how best to ensure progress by clarifying criteria, making the advancement process more transparent, distributing meaningful assignments equitably, and opening up the right networks for women in the board and in your community relationships.
1See: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/womenreportnew.pdf
2See: https://hbr.org/2012/05/to-close-the-gender-gap-focus-on-assignments
3See: https://hbr.org/2016/09/to-succeed-in-tech-women-need-more-visibility