How Workplaces — Not Women — Need to Change to Improve Equality

AI is transforming the world. And it starts with the right compute. ARM is the AI compute platform trusted by global leaders. Proudly NASDAQ listed, Built for the future. Visit arm.com discover. Welcome to the hbr ideacast from harvard business review. I'm kurt nickish. Lean in, negotiate harder. Exude confidence, but also warmth. That's some of the advice given to women who want to advance in their careers and to be treated as equal partners in the workplace. And some of that we've said right here on this show. Meanwhile, organizations that espouse diversity and gender equality have been upping their game by offering unconscious bias training and anti harassment workshops. But our guest today says, despite all this talk in the business world of achieving more equality for women, we're still missing the mark. Michelle King spent her early career in human resources and then researched gender equality as an academic. And she says it's time to stop telling women to work harder and to adapt when it is the workplace that has to change. And she says the recent efforts by companies to improve their work climates are helping, but not really tackling the core problem. Michelle King is the director of Inclusion at Netflix, and her new book is the Overcome the Invisible Barriers that Are Holding Women Back at Work. Michelle, thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me. It's so great to be here.

Now, you worked in human resources for a number of years before you went on to study gender and organizations in a PhD program. But I'm curious, what was your experience in those HR roles that made you want to dig into this, you know, difficult area of study?

Yeah, it's really interesting working in human resources because, you know, we have so many diversity inclusion strategies that have really been around, I think, for the last decade. You know, I've been implementing unconscious bias training, mentoring programs, coaching programs, all aimed at women. And I would notice that year on year, these programs were having very little impact in terms of changing the representation of women in leadership positions. And so then that led me down an entirely different research path. You know, sort of almost had to start again looking at how inequality works in workplaces and why it is that, you know, despite women's best efforts and in some cases, you know, the fact that their capabilities are even better than men's, you know, why is it that they're not advancing? So what, what's actually happening? What I found is fundamentally organizations are just not sort of set up with women in mind. And as a result, there's a lot of barriers that women need to overcome throughout their career.

Yeah. And I'm sure You experienced much of this yourself, just as a woman in the workplace, but also in these HR roles. You probably were in meetings where you were handling. I'm just imagining here, but I imagined you dealing with women complaining about inappropriate things a male supervisor has said, or women saying, I got passed up for this job, but I feel like I'm qualified. You must have seen that kind of stuff over and over. And what did that view give you?

You know, I remember really clearly one time working as a human resource manager for a large multinational organization. And my role was to support a very senior leader with getting qualified people promot promoted to that next level. And every year there was one female leader who would be nominated, who would put forward, make the case. She was a stellar performer. She had all the right leadership attributes. She consistently went over and above. She was extremely qualified. She just ticked every box. And year on year we'd find that she was pushed back. And the feedback would be really ambiguous things like, she needs more time in her role, she needs to develop her judgment. And it was just so clear. Her performance was so. Every time that she was pushed back, she would try even harder. And so, you know, at this point it was just ridiculous. Like we had to make the case. And I remember sitting opposite the CFO when we were putting this case forward with her manager sitting there, and the CFO looked at me and he said, you know, she's great, but she just doesn't quite fit in. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, she's got that clip and those glasses and she just doesn't, you know, she doesn't really fit in. And I remember just being completely silenced and looking around the room at all these male leaders and realizing in that moment that this woman didn't fit in and she would never fit in because she wasn't like any of these male leaders and that it really wasn't her. No amount of trying harder, no amount of attending women's conferences, no amount of mentoring, no amount of sponsorship was ever going to change this. And you know, in that moment, I advocated, you know, I asked why, I asked what does this have to do with her performance? And they decided to hire her. Not hire her, sorry, promote her. But it was a sort of a hollow victory because now she had to work with people who didn't really believe she was quite right and quite sort of fitted in. And the CFO promoted her, but as he did, he said, well, she's my diversity kind of achievement for the year. And it was just that throwaway comment that immediately delegitimized her amongst her peers.

What is the system getting wrong? Because the system ostensibly is about rewarding results, promoting qualified people, and also doing the most with the talent you have to compete in the marketplace. But you've given a really glaring example of just where that falls flat on its face. What's the system getting wrong?

If you walked into organizations today and you asked the average manager or leader, how does inequality work? They wouldn't be able to tell you that's a real problem, because that's actually what we're trying to fix. And tackling inequality starts with understanding it. Organizations are set up by and large to support a ideal type of worker, what I call a prototype to succeed. And research consistently has shown, even across geographies and across different cultures, that this is by and large a man. So this tends to be somebody, you know, when we think of a manager, we think of somebody that's male. And not only that, but they tend to have sort of masculine attributes. So white, middle class, heterosexual, sort of able bodied male. But importantly, it's also someone who's willing to engage in sort of dominant, assertive, aggressive, competitive, exclusionary behaviors to get ahead. And you know, they are willing also to make work the number one priority. So that means it's also or somebody who's free from dependent care responsibilities. The problem with prototypes is people who tend to succeed in organizations are people who best fit the prototype. You fit in almost by default. You walk in and it's easier for you to access networks, it's easier for you to be sponsored, it's easier for people to see you as a leader just simply because you match in their mind what good looks like when it comes to leadership. But the reverse is also true. So the more ways that you differ from this ideal standard, the more challenges you're going to experience trying to advance at work. And this is true for both men and women, which is a really important point to make. The barriers are not just something that women experience. Men also experience challenges to that. And so what the system has got wrong is that since the beginning of time, since organizations were around, they've pretty much been hardwired with this ideal standard in mind. In many ways, what we're really getting right or really trying to fix around the system is how we value difference. So can we create an environment where different types of individuals can succeed?

Nobody wants to. And no company should want their workers to walk in the door just feeling disenfranchised. What can leaders do to change that.

So I think the first thing that leaders can do, and I've seen this done very effectively, is become aware, right? We need leaders to become aware of inequality and disrupt their own denial. So I've worked with a lot of leaders who just simply don't believe that inequality is an issue in their workplace or their team or their department, right? So there's this complete disconnect, right, between how they're leading and how that creates cultures of inequality, which is why there's no ownership of the problem. So we need to disrupt this denial. And to do that, we need leaders to educate themselves on inequality. So I've seen far too many corporate programs where they simply go to the quick fix of getting women to maybe share their experience of inequality. A bit like me too, right? So tell your story of the truth, challenges you experience at work, and that is very effective. It's a great way to engage women. But I don't think we should be putting all the work on women to educate men about inequality. I think men can start by reading books like mine that really explain what the barriers are that women face, how that's different for all women. And once you've done that, you've then done the work to be able to ask women in your organization, either in team meetings or you could run a workshop where you do ask them to share their experiences and you listen. Use it as an opportunity to understand rather than this need to be right. We need to let go of this idea that we're good people and really try and focus on understanding how our privilege creates challenges for people in the workplace. And the privilege being that you fit the prototype. So understanding, is there an ideal in your workplace? Is there a standard by which we're promoting and advancing people that's implied? What are the behaviors that get advanced? What are the behaviors that get ignored that aren't great, and what kind of gets endorsed? So I think leaders need to do that upfront work to really understand inequality in their workplace.

If you get to leaders to become aware, then what can they do about it?

So this is the harder part. The next step is really getting leaders to do the work. So what I mean by that is reflecting on the personal level. So what are you doing in terms of your behaviors to enable those experiences of inequality that you've just learned about or that you've just heard about? What is it that you're endorsing? What is it that you're not getting involved in? Where are your blind spots? So really reflecting as a leader as to what it is that you're doing to enable this culture of inequality, so to really do that work, to reflect on it. And that starts with really exploring your privilege, so trying to acknowledge your different identities. So I'm a white woman. I obviously have experienced gender discrimination and challenges associated with that, but I'm white. And so from my perspective, I also have privilege associated with having my whiteness in common with the ideal standard. And in some respects, that does make things easier for me than it would a woman of colour. So I've had to interrogate my privilege and try and understand what I'm doing as somebody who really wants to advocate for equality, to actually uphold that privilege or to acknowledge it. So I've taken time to learn about the barriers women of color face, understand the challenges that they experience, understand how maybe sometimes I contribute to those challenges, whether I know it or not, and then do the work to really reflect on how that plays out in my workplace. I think taking all of that and really understanding it is what leads you to be an ally. Because once you know that, you then know what you can do again. In the example of women of color, I know that it's more challenging for women of color to advance. I know the barriers that they face. So I make it an active sort of part of my role to champion women of color to remove barriers when I see they're being ignored in meetings, or when I see that they're microaggressions playing out to be an ally, to advocate, to speak up, to make sure that they're being heard or not overlooked. There's a bunch of things you can do every day to try and be an ally, but you can only do that once you've done the work yourself.

I mean, you're asking what you should of leaders, but to some people, it's going to sound like you're asking a lot, that they have to really spend, be curious and spend a lot of time investigating and being introspective and questioning their own behavior. And these are habits that they've probably formed over years. And, you know, the higher up somebody is, the more ingrained it may be.

Tackling inequality is actually every leader's job. It is the definition of leadership, and it's also the ultimate privilege. So to be able to remove barriers that you yourself never have to experience is the ultimate form of privilege. And it's actually a requirement of every leader. Because if you want to advance women in your workplace, you cannot do that without knowing what the barriers are and taking steps to remove them. So, you know, by and large, Leaders just simply haven't been leading when it comes to equality in workplaces. So we need them to lead. It's an imperative in terms of, you know, advancing women and also advancing men and creating environments where men can show up differently.

You're saying that just, just promoting somebody finally and calling it a diversity project is not the right thing to do?

It's absolutely not the right thing to do. And it's also quite frankly, lazy. And what we're finding is that might result in short term gains, but it does nothing to ensure the personal stay. I mean, there was a recent study out that showed that, I think it was in 2009, only three women succeeded the 24 women CEOs today in sort of, I think it was S&P 500 organizations. And the reason for that everybody else was replaced by. And the reason for that is this is not a sustainable solution. Simply putting women into leadership positions and hoping for the best does nothing to change the lived experience of inequality that they have to encounter every single day. The only way to do that is to lead. And so that starts with setting the standards for your own behaviors, not engaging in practices or behaviors or day to day interactions that marginalize or discriminate against women or any minority group and really calling yourself on it when you do, because you will make mistakes. It's just part of the process. We'll all learn learning. But the second part of that is then managing those experiences when they do pop up. So they're going to happen. Inequality is going to happen. It's just a part of how organizations are wide, it's a part of society. So you know, it doesn't disappear the moment you walk into the office. So people are going to experience those moments. But it's a leader's role to tackle those moments and use them as opportunities to learn. You know, every inequality moment, a bit like safety. So every unsafe practice in organizations can be used as an opportunity to learn. So understand, you know, why did this happen? What was your blind spot? You know, what can you learn from it? What can you do differently? So I think this is the role of leaders. This is actually what we're asking them to do. And then I think the final thing is really trying to make it a practice. So the hardest part about this work is explaining to employees what they can do day to day to practice equality, how they can make it a routine part of their role. And it's as simple as things like you've got a project, you've got a team thinking about the makeup of that Team thinking about the interactions in team meetings, how people are included, how people are spoken over, how people are valued, and making it a practice. I mean, I know one manager who every week for half an hour, will just sit with his team and bring up a topic related to inclusion, and then employees talk about how this is showing up in their team. So he's made it a practice like something that the organization just works through, talks about, and then looks for ways to mitigate some of those challenges. So I think that's really what we're asking of leaders, is to create these environments. And I just want to add that ultimately leaders benefit from this because creating environments or cultures of equality, or environments that support equality and are enabling of everybody to succeed are six times more likely to innovate. You're more likely to have employees have an innovation mindset. You're more likely to have employees that problem solve, that, collaborate better. So ultimately, it's better for the organization, which is why this is a leadership imperative.

When a young woman, an aspiring manager, an aspiring leader, comes to you looking for advice to, you know, deal with being a professional woman, an ambitious woman in today's workplace, what do you tell her?

I think the first thing is to get to know the barriers you're going to encounter. That's your roadmap, right? It's women might experience one barrier, or they might experience multiple barriers at different points in their careers. I've identified 17 over the three kind of core phases of a woman's career. So the best way to arm yourself, to navigate the barriers is to know them. So you have to know them. Otherwise, what happens is you internalize these challenges, right? So when you get confronted with a barrier, you do everything you can to overcome it. It still doesn't work out for you. You're likely to internalize that. And a great example is pay. Like in the first few years of women's careers, there's a pay gap, right? Research, by extension, found that we just simply start off by devaluing women comparative to men, irrespective of the level. And so, you know, naturally, women might then think, great, I'll just ask for a pay rise. But research finds that men and women ask for pay rises at similar rates. Women are just 20 less likely to get one, because when women speak up, they're seen as difficult, or they're seen as aggressive, or they're seen as pushy. So it makes it very difficult for women right from the beginning to navigate workplaces. And the challenge is, if you do go and ask for that pay rise. And you still don't get it. Even after reading every book on negotiation and doing everything Sheryl Sandberg recommends and lean in and trying really, really hard, it's easy to internalize that and say, well, something must be wrong with me. And that, you know, we see that play out in terms of confidence levels, right? So within the first three years of life, women's confidence level, the Bain study found that it drops, I think, by more than sort of more than halves, and that women's aspiration levels drop by 60%. Because right off the bat, women are really struggling with this idea that they don't sort of fit in. So we see that play out. So I think for women early on, you know, read books like mine, get to know what the barriers are, understand, you know, that that's the terrain you're likely to encounter and then know them well enough to name them and also support other women. We can be allies to one another. When we're seeing a barrier playing out, we can let our female colleagues know. So I think very early on that's important. And I believe in that so much that I'm partnering with Amy Paula Smart Girls to go around to universities and through a series of webinars and video content to try and educate young women on the barriers they're likely to encounter very early on. Just having that awareness is the way you armor yourself to navigate organizations and the challenges created from inequality.

Michelle, thanks so much for coming on the show to talk about this.

No worries. Thank you so much.

That's Michelle King. She's the director of inclusion at Netflix and the author of the new book the Overcome the Invisible Barriers that Are Holding Women Back at Work. This episode was produced by Mary Dew. We get technical help from Rob Eckart. Adam Buchholz is our audio product manager. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. I'm Kurt Nickish.