By Galia BarHava-Monteith Director, www.professionelle.co.nz an online community and resource for professional working women. 

There is no question that women are under-represented in senior positions in New Zealand.

In recent analysis we conducted at www.professionelle.co.nz, we were able to demonstrate that the pay gap and the rate of women’s participation in senior positions in the private sector have both worsened in the new millennium. But why?

Many perspectives have been put forward as to why women, three decades on from the feminist revolution, are still not making it to the top in greater numbers. International research and our recent online survey into “what’s stopping women rising to the top?” demonstrate that one of the consistent explanations put forward is the lack of mentoring of women in organisations.

 Why mentoring is a powerful tool

Mentoring is an incredibly powerful tool. A good mentor can act as a guide, a sounding board, a powerful advocate and a thought partner. A good mentor should challenge your thinking and stretch your expectations of yourself and what you think you can possibly achieve. A great mentor will grow with you and will stay with you throughout your career, introducing you to her/his network and will take a keen ongoing interest in your development.

Whose responsibility is it to ensure that talented and promising women and men have access to good mentors? I believe organisations definitely have a role to play in encouraging the development of successful mentoring relationships.

For example, organisations that are serious about developing their talented men and women can formally facilitate mentoring relationships. They can engineer cross-functional interactions and put in place incentives for senior managers/professionals to become mentors.

The importance of mentoring is widely acknowledged in the US. Most Fortune 500 companies see mentoring as an important employee development tool, with 71% of them having mentoring programs (according to T. A. Scandura, a management professor and dean of the graduate school at the University of Miami).

Various academic studies since the 1980s have demonstrated the many benefits of mentoring. According to Scandura, employees who have mentors earn more money, are better socialized into the organization and are more productive. Research also demonstrates that mentees experience less stress and get promoted more rapidly.

 Mentoring for Women

Organisations that believe they need to specially target their talented women, whether it’s because they are leaving, or that there aren’t many of them at the top or simply because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do, can shoulder tap rising female stars and ensure they have great mentors in place. Of all the strategies put forward to help combat the ongoing state of affairs where women don’t make it to the top, mentoring is probably the lowest hanging fruit.

In fact, a recent article from Wharton University’s online knowledge system points to research that shows how much easier it is for young men to get mentored by senior men than it is for young women to do the same. Since men continue to hold most of the senior positions in organisations, the implications for women are obvious.

The role of the mentee in the mentoring process

But here’s the thing, the research and literature indicate that mentoring cannot be overly prescriptive as this will detract from the trust and the ‘flow’ of the relationship, thus making it less effective.

Indeed, according to Wharton management professor Katherine Klein, Informal mentoring relationships are often more typical and more beneficial to both mentor and mentees. According to Klein, it is particularly important for mentees to be proactive in trying to establish a relationship with a senior person and to be energetic in keeping the relationship going. She uses the phrase “irresistible protégé” to describe these employees.

“Research shows that protégés influence the amount of mentoring they receive,” according to Klein. “You’re more likely to get mentored if you’re talented, have an outgoing personality and are career- and goal-oriented. Once a mentor sees that you’re eager, the more likely it is the mentor will want to spend the time and social capital on you, introduce you to the right people, and so on.”

It has certainly been my observation over many years that a good mentoring relationship is a two way process. Mentees who put themselves out there as they seek good mentors tend to find them. Mentees who take an active role in engaging and maintaining the ongoing relationship with their mentors throughout their careers are more likely to be introduced to their mentors’ extensive networks and gain access to more opportunities. Mentors benefit not only from watching their protégés’ growth but also from access to their mentees’ growing networks and influence.

Perhaps one of the reasons both international research and women themselves cite lack of mentoring as one of the key barriers to ‘getting to the top’ is because women are reluctant to take such an active role in the mentoring relationship. Members of our online community tell us that they can feel excluded from the informal networks where the ‘organic’ mentoring relationships have historically developed. Women may also find it too ‘in your face’ or ‘self promoting’ to be so openly proactive. They may, in addition, shy away from taking other people’s time and feel that they are imposing. And perhaps, with a lack of role models who’ve had great mentors to learn from, they may simply not see it as a viable or valuable approach.

 Two Way Street

Mentoring is a two-way relationship; as in any relationship, both partners need to take an active approach. Women and men who wish to have a great mentor should seek that person out, initiate the relationship and continually work to maintain it. Organisations can help by removing obstacles, enabling cross-functional interactions and actively promoting the concept in their organisations.

Ultimately, however, it is up to us.

If you’re interested in finding a mentor or mentoring other professional women, please join our online community @ www.professionelle.co.nz we are about to launch a new service to our members on our message board, helping connect professional women mentors and mentees across New Zealand.

© Professionelle.co.nz

By Galia Barhava-Monteith Director Professionelle, an online community dedicated to Professional working women in New Zealand

Philippa Reed, the CEO of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust (EEO), kindly invited my Business partner Sarah Wilshaw Sparkes and me to attend their inaugural Diversity Day at the end of August. And what a day that was. Wonderful, thought-provoking speakers challenged us to really think through the importance of accepting and celebrating diversity in modern workplaces. Even the hard nosed, non-pc participants couldn’t argue with the business case of taking diversity seriously by the end of the day – but more on that later.

As I was sitting there, listening to these amazing speakers and enjoying the opportunity to take part in this event, I was also thinking our members @ Professionelle and how I could share my experiences of the day with them. And then the right angle struck me! It was: networking as a vehicle to bring greater diversity into our individual lives.

On networking

My close colleagues and friends are probably bored to tears by my going on (and on and on) about the importance of networking. I am new to networking, you see. In my first few roles I was never encouraged to take part in networking events; in fact I think it was almost frowned upon. When I had my big corporate role, I was also a mum and then it was a matter of not wanting to take time away from my family to take part in these events.

I have given some thought to why professionals like lawyers, consultants and accountants are somewhat reluctant to network. I believe it is to do with the charging-by-the-hour model we are socialised into. Basically, it ain’t work unless it’s chargeable!

Now, that Sarah and I are building a new business, which is all about networking (albeit online), we have been doing a considerable amount of it. And, it works, it really does. The more we put ourselves out there, the more we build relationships and new and exciting opportunities turn up. What we’re also seeing is that those people who take the time to network, are the ones who find out or are approached about opportunities, simply because they become a known quantity and build their personal brand in the process.

On Diversity

I have to admit I hadn’t given diversity as such a great deal of thought before this EEO Trust event. But as I listened to the speakers the business case for diversity became abundantly clear to me. What really struck me was how bringing diversity into our own individual lives is extremely relevant and can increase our resilience and our prospects as individuals.

Diversity and Innovation

The first speaker of the day was Frans Johansson, the author of the Medici Effect. In a nutshell, Frans’s book and his speaking illustrate powerfully how diversity breeds innovation. His messages were clear and engagingly simple:
1. All new ideas are really combinations of existing ones – but to become a new idea the combination has to be unique.
2. The single strongest correlation to innovation success is the number of new ideas generated and pursued.
3. Cultural diversity is the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to driving innovation.

Frans’s examples illustrated his case beautifully. The one that stuck with me is that of L’Oreal’s acquisition of SoftSheen, a small haircare manufacturer in the US which focused on the African American market. L’Oreal is a French company that according to Johansson makes a point of employing a wide range of ethnicities and is deliberate about encouraging cultural diversity. As a case in point, at the time of the Softsheen acquisition, L’Oreal was run by a British man!!

Armed with a new research lab to investigate the properties of African-American hair and the insight that a billion people outside the US had this hairtype, L’Oreal quickly became the leader in this ethnic haircare category.

Collaborative workplaces

To get ideas flowing people actually need to talk to each other. According to Alan Bertenshaw from Matisse, the futuristic workplace environment is all about encouraging people to talk to each other and collaborate as part of their working lives. Gone will be the days you’ll have to book a meeting room three days in advance so that you can have a conversation with your boss.

His thesis was that the modern workplace is designed to “encourage accidental bumping and fortuitus encounters.” It is these encounters that will increase productivity, cross functional communication and yes you guessed it, diversity of thoughts ideas and experiences.

By this stage, I was convinced, and I realised that for me as an individual, it was through networking that I have brought diversity into my life. In less than a year I have quadrupled my personal network. I did this through being open to people’s ideas and suggestions, seeking new people out and welcoming new approaches. In the process, I have discovered how energising and supportive some people are which has made me re-evaluate who I spend my time with and why.

Yes, there are times when I feel I should be doing chargeable work rather than meeting people or corresponding via e-mail. But when I look back, it is through that persistence on valuing networking that we’ve had the biggest and most personally gratifying breaks.

Finally, the case for networking as a vehicle for bringing diversify to our personal life was sealed for me during the presentation on resilience given by Dr Sven Hansen from PricewaterhouseCoopers

Diversity and Resilience

I am not going to attempt to re-cap Sven’s presentation on engaging resilience to build vitality. But what really stuck with me was that resilience is 100% learnt. Resilient people bounce back from set-backs; have a bias for action and wide and diverse networks. His acid test was how many people are there on our cell phones who we could call tonight if we needed support. What he also emphasised, was to be honest about how many of them are not our immediate colleagues.

There was, of course, much more to the day. But as I listened to it all, I became more and more excited about the concept that we as individuals don’t need to wait for our workplace to do encourage diversity for us. We can do it ourselves in a very deliberate way.

Now, I don’t think that all networking opportunities are created equal. However, as Sarah has been heard to comment, you can’t predict which approach will lead to the big payoff – but they all have the potential to bring something, sometime. We’d add here that we see giving as an important part of networking; we always try to look for what we can bring to the other person. What goes around will eventually come around.

What we can and should always do, is be open to the prospect of meeting and engaging with new people who we might not normally seek out. In the end, it is through these encounters that we might come up with the next big idea/career move, find ways to implement it and meet our new best friend in the process!

© Professionelle.co.nz