Gender synergy
A group of determined Icelandic women has made an international conference, WE: Closing the Gender Gap come true. The chairman of FKA, very hospitably invited me to stay at her home and introduced me to women in her network. These are women of the vulcanic land and have the activity of the constantly springing geysers in the country, where the inner life of earth frequently bursts through the surface. And it appears that the time has come for change. The conference brings in women and men from the US and Europe to address the issues of still few women in topmanagement and boards. The perspective of the conference was the economically sane decision of diversity in boards, where more creativity and new perspectives are launched with effect on the results. One woman in a group doesn't do it. At least 1/3 is needed to create critical mass and a thourough change of ways of approaching the responsibilities of the people of influence.
The important insight is to collaborate both men and women to enforce variation, enhancing financial results and not the least gain personal benefits from allowing the role of both men and women to create a much larger variation. This means that a different perspective in a group very often opens the space for allowing more differences in the group as a whole, and for each person to unfold previously hidden thougts.
A scientist from Rotterdam studies the unconscious beliefs about men and women that affects behavior as well as the way a differing behavior is perceived. More scientific results show that a CEO, who has been unaware of certain behaviors, is willing to change, once he sees the facts about certain elements of his behavior. In order to make the unconscious conscious both women and men must speak up and be open and honest about, what they see, what the hear and their ideas how ever strange they may seem at first.
Geena Davies, american actress, gave a speak, where she told, how she uses her influence to change gender stereotypes in movies, in order to create broader diversity of role models. If you google her, you can see that she herself chooses characters that are not the usual stereotypes.
The courage to speak up can be created from the knowledge that diversity works better, than boards of 7 equally thinking minds, both on outcome and at a personal level.
