With so many women now in the workplace and feminism’s early victories (it’s been over a century since women were first given the vote, more than half a century since the advent of the Pill, and there’s at least 50% female graduation in today’s university courses), you’d think that old glass ceiling would be badly […]
The benefits of diversity and overcoming biases
Diversity at work is really about learning to build, extend and recognise everyone as people rather than labels or stereotypes. Privileging diversity for its own sake? Sometimes we see an inevitable corrective reaction to years of systemically unfair, often unconscionable behaviours and practices, many of which continue to exist. Here we have one diversity surmounting […]
Little differences make big differences
“Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.” This wonderful quote is from entrepreneur and writer, the late William Clement Stone. Stone made numerous observations but I especially like this: “There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference! The little difference is attitude. The […]
Do men or women make better decision-makers?
Wouldn’t it be good if we all learned about decision-making and decisiveness at school? We learn mostly by the consequences of our decisions. We learn from history how key decisions affected the world. Economics explains what goes into a decision and conversely what gets left out (opportunity costs). Legal studies show the ramifications of choices, […]
Gender inequality traps to avoid at work
Gender inequality behaviours continue to flourish in the workplace. A great recent piece by Facebook honcho Sheryl Sandberg and academic Adam Grant in the New York Times (‘Madame CEO, get me a coffee?’) reminded me how much. Face it, Sheryl and Adam said, women do far more office “housework” than do men. The “housework” is the sometimes unseen […]
Don’t be so biased!
Bias is usually a generalisation based on limited experiences or examples, and at work it can close us down to new experiences with people. We don’t always perceive bias. Sometimes it’s in ourselves or it may be lurking in the person right near you. It may be: an assumption voiced as fact an irrational or […]