Women Are Changing Work Cultures for the Better, Says Consultant

Companies with women in the C-suite are more profitable than companies without them, according to a study by the Peterson Institute for Int’l Economics cited by Andi Simon, Ph.D.

Anthropologist Simon, author of On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, also noted that the number of women-owned businesses grew 45% from 2007 to 2016 vs. a 9% growth in the number of businesses overall, according to womenable.com.

As women have taken on greater leadership roles in the business world, it’s paid off for both them and business, says Simon.

PIIE, which collected data from 21,980 firms in 91 countries, said there was a “relative dearth of women in high leadership positions.”

“The results suggest that the presence of women in corporate leadership positions may improve firm performance,” it added. “This correlation could reflect either the payoff to nondiscrimination or the fact that women increase a firm’s skill diversity. Women’s presence in corporate leadership is positively correlated with firm characteristics such as size as well as national characteristics such as girls’ math scores, the absence of discriminatory attitudes toward female executives, and the availability of paternal leave.

“The results find no impact of board gender quotas on firm performance, but they suggest that the payoffs of policies that facilitate women rising through the corporate ranks more broadly could be significant.”

Also cited by Simon was a 31-page report referenced by Huffington Post that said “Companies with Strong Female Leadership Perform Better.”

More than 4,000 public companies worldwide were included in this study. Those that had strong female leadership generated a return on equity of 10.1 percent per year vs. 7.4 percent for those without.

Strong female leadership was defined as having three or more women on the board or having a female CEO and at least one woman director. Female directors comprise only 18.1 percent of all directorships worldwide, it was noted.

Cultures Need to Change

Simon said, “As a corporate anthropologist, I’m aware of the recent shift in thinking surrounding how cultures should be restructured in order for women to thrive in the workplace.”

“This has caused me to ask: What type of culture do women really want and is it that different from what men want, too?”

Here are her recommendations:

• Create a culture that blends work and home. Take a whole-life approach and doesn’t force employees to choose between work and family. A company that did that won all sorts of local awards for being one of the best places to work in the area.

• Encourage staff to be innovators. Often even the employees who think outside the box are reluctant to act outside the box for fear of repercussions if things don’t work out quite the way they hoped. But for innovation to happen, a good leader needs to empower employees to try new ideas.

• Be an adventurer, stay curious. If you expect your employees to try new ideas, you need to be willing to do so as well. Don't worry about failing. Keep tinkering and trying stuff and sooner or later you'll hit upon your a-ha moment.

In many ways men and women want similar things in the workplace, says Simon. Both prefer a strong clan culture that emphasizes collaboration, teamwork and a focus on people.

In her research, Simons says she’s finding that the women who know how to create success are not just building better businesses; they are changing the way people work.

“The corporate cultures in women-run businesses reflect the personal beliefs and values of the women leading them,” Simon says. “And those businesses tend to be highly successful.”

AWPR Seeks Pay/Title Parity

American Women in PR was recently organized for the purpose of winning pay and title equality with men. It held its inaugural meeting in New York City June 9. Founder is Talia Beckett who also founded Canadian Women in PR.

Simon is the founder and CEO of Simon Assocs. Management Consultants, Yorktown Heights, NY, “created more than a decade ago to help companies use the tools of anthropology to better adapt to changing times.” She is a public speaker and an Innovation Games facilitator and trainer. She served as a tenured professor of anthropology and American studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and was a visiting professor teaching entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis. She has appeared on “Good Morning America” and has been featured in the Washington Post, Business Week and Forbes, and on Bloomberg Radio.