What do you accomplish when you put a group of professional women together in a room? a valid question and now a controversial topic of discussion.
Professional women’s networks have recently come under fire for perpetuating the ideology that women need to be “fixed” in order to be successful in the workplace. These professional groups were for the most part originally formed for women to network and listen to senior women for mentorship and role modelling.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, co-author of Why Women Mean Business”, was recently quoted as saying, “We have to stop bringing groups of women together to talk about what we know is going wrong.” “We have to convince our companies to stop fixing women.”
Separating women for personal development does not seem to fit with the current line of thinking that “women’s” issues are now business issues and that advancing women’s leadership is of great benefit to an organization. If that is so, what is the best approach for supporting women’s leadership initiatives?
Many women believe that the support from a women’s network is vital to their success, but maybe the overall purpose of these groups is more about sharing and strategizing to change the overall company culture than it is to “fix” women.
Professional women’s groups offer wonderful opportunities for collaboration and support from other women. This remains important. However, in order to shift company cultures, perhaps these networks should also collaborate with mixed gender groups both internally and externaly.
Women’s groups can take the lead on shifting the attitudes and beliefs of companies by shifting their own agenda from how difficult it is to be a woman to creating better opportunities for talent management.
What are your thoughts?
It seems that you have multipe themes:
1. “fixing” women
2. advancing women’s leadership
3. purpose of networking
4. mentoring
5. shifting company cultures
6. collaborations for multi gender concerns
7. opportunities for talent management
Each begs discussion and I have comments on each:
1. ‘Fixing” women is not the same as building upon our strengths. Women, in feneral, offer different viewpoints and strategies than men.
2. Supporting women’s initiatives is not as simple as instituting policies. Its roots are psychological.
3. Women getting together IS about strategizing and sharing. It is about resources, referrals, advice, feedback, camaraderie.
4. Many professionals involve themselves in mentoring on more of a personal level than organizational.
5. Company cultures are barometers of the business culture at large. They can influence each other.
6. It is shocking how few women’s organizations even know each other let alone interface with mixed gender initiatives! Not that this isn’t a good idea for certain collaborations, but as an overall mission, has limitations.
7. This is a topic for a separate discussion all together–but deserves examining!
Liane Sebastian, author of Women who Win at Work, wofw.com
Liane,
thank you for your response! I do believe that professional women’s network can be extremely effective if they support ongoing initiatives such as strategic networking, mentoring, and leadership development programs. If these networks are supported by the organization and not seen as just for social networking or simply put to “fix women”, they can help promote women to higher positions in the company. My radio show, Women Mean Business, will have a panel discussion on 12/8 with 3 companies that have successfully implemented programs. You can tune in http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1612 and select the Dec. 8th date to hear more about these programs.
Bonnie