HOW Women Mean Business: A Powerful Toolkit
Rob ten Hoedt, President, Medtronic ECA
“We’ve been living in a corporate world where the well known wisdom that a company’s greatest asset are its employees has been preached from every company’s corner and office for the past few decades. The war for talent stimulated companies to develop sophisticated strategies in branding their image towards candidates. Internally, companies became more consistent in applying performance assessments, more sensitive in shaping efficient business behaviors, sharper in identifying talents. People management became a key leadership competency rather than a job for an HR function. And yet we failed to appreciate that people and employees really means men and women. Talent, a combination of the consistently high performance and equally high learning agility is gender unbiased. And yet only a few women make it to the top of companies structures.”
“We think we understand the pattern and know all about it but the truth is: we do not, nor do we really know how to make the paradigm shift”
“Today the corporate world more and more often brings to the table the issue of gender balance which is challenging a traditionally male dominated organizational status quo. Looking at how little has however changed on the succession maps over the last years, despite many well-intended and often quite costly initiatives, calls for a thorough re-think strategy. We think we understand the pattern and know all about it but the truth is: we do not, nor do we really know how to make the paradigm shift. As a result even the companies who successfully hire gender diverse candidates face an enormous attrition of female talent at each step of their hierarchical ladder at the later stage. The glass ceiling is a myth. Sadly, women who leave for another job often think that the grass is greener elsewhere when in fact this is not true either.”
“How Women Mean Business offers a proven, step by step methodology to define and successfully deploy a sustainable strategy to build better gender-balanced organization. It is an eye opener for the executives, CEOs, business and functional leaders, offering a powerful toolkit which enables to commence a systemic change management journey right from the company’s board rooms. Gender balance must be understood clearly as a strategic business opportunity and presented as a compelling business case to all employees. Why women or gender diverse teams bring more business is obvious for any company who competes for talent and heavily relies on innovation. Yet only the companies who will make a conscious effort to nurture the gender balanced talent pipelines and master gender bilingual leadership style will win in the marketplace of the 21st century.”
